![\"Jade](\"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Jade-Chinatown.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThis year has already been brutal for local chocolatiers \u2014 even before all the tariff drama. Cacao prices have tripled in the past 2 years due to climate change primarily, damaging crops and reducing harvests. Small chocolate makers are getting squeezed out as the bigger chocolate companies look for new suppliers and grab all the cacao they can. So trying to ethically source cacao and couvertures is harder \u2014 there just isn\u2019t as much and what is available is pricier.<\/p>\n
Add to that the overhead costs of running a business \u2014 especially those with a storefront and\/or cafe \u2014 and we are seeing the results here in the Bay Area: Three established chocolate businesses have closed since the beginning of the year \u2014 and our big candy maker has closed one of their local branches.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jade Chocolates<\/strong><\/a> was the first to announce their closure in March<\/a>. Five years ago they were setting up a new factory store and caf\u00e9 in SF\u2019s Chinatown<\/a> \u2014 and got hit with COVID closures before they could really begin. Mindy Fong, Jade\u2019s founder and head chocolatier, kept it going and managed to achieve her dream with the space \u2014 themed high teas<\/a>, a coffee and tea bar with lots of Asian inspired drinks, double kitchen (hot and cold) downstairs for making chocolates and food, a conference area for meetings and classes, a shop for selling teas, chocolates, and baked goods \u2014 all in a space she (a former architect) designed and decorated with her artist daughter.<\/p>\n It was pretty special. But ultimately overhead was too much and after trying a bunch of different things, Mindy pulled the plug on not only the space but her entire chocolate business that she started in 2007. While it\u2019s sad, Mindy is looking forward to doing something new. We look forward to it too.<\/p>\n Then a day before the annual SF spring chocolate salon, Charlotte Walter of Charlotte Truffles<\/a><\/strong> announced on Instagram that they were going on indefinite hiatus to deal with some family matters. She said they would keep selling their existing stock but were winding down the business.<\/p>\n So another local fine chocolatier has closed \u2014 but she\u2019s leaving us with the hope that sometime in the future she will come back and restart the business. I am keeping my fingers crossed that she can rebalance her life and still find room to make her beautiful tasty bonbons and fun bars someday.<\/p>\n I look forward to the day I can enjoy her bright green Pandan Delight and bright purple Ubelicious bars<\/a> again. And her crunchy Cr\u00e8me Br\u00fbl\u00e9e bar<\/a> that mimicked the experience of a real cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e. And her classic Peppermint bar<\/a> with peppermint bits mixed in a swirl of dark and white chocolates. And all of her inventive bonbons, many with Asian ingredients<\/a> that she married well with chocolate. I should stop now…<\/p>\n But there\u2019s more…<\/p>\n At the SF International Chocolate Salon<\/a> on April 7th, we talked to Carol Gancia, Kokak Chocolates<\/a>\u2019<\/strong> founder and head chocolatier. Cacaopod and I had plans to visit her Castro District storefront later in the year to try her champorado,<\/em> Filipino cacao porridge. Carol said to text her first \u2014 I thought it was to coordinate with her when she would be in the shop. I found out a few days later that she was closing the store at the end of the month.<\/p>\n Carol had said at the Salon that she wanted to get a better work\/life balance \u2014 she was working 14 hours days 7 days a week. She wanted time off for herself and to have a social life, maybe even time to date! It didn\u2019t seem like too much of an ask out of life. I didn\u2019t realize at the time that it was a bigger issue, but she did say that the shop overhead was double what her overhead was when she just had a commercial kitchen to work out of.<\/p>\n We reminisced about how we\u2019d met when she was just starting out \u2014 a one-woman operation making bars and bonbons and cute little handpainted lilypads \u2014 and her troublesome frog molds<\/a>. She hung in there, winning awards, getting lots of good press, and building sales to the point that she could open the factory store just 2 years later.<\/p>\n Kokak\u2019s online store is still open where you can order bonbons and a few other items. She doesn\u2019t have her popular and unusual Umami bar<\/a> now, but her bonbons feature a lot of Southeast Asian flavors in good single origin Ecuadorian chocolate so there is still plenty to enjoy. Here\u2019s hoping she keeps making chocolates \u2014 but on a more reasonable schedule. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n Finally, even the big boys in chocolate are downsizing operations. See\u2019s Candies<\/a>,<\/strong> the LA based but SF ubiquitous operation, closed their Sunnyvale store on Mother\u2019s Day. They haven\u2019t given a reason but I\u2019m sure if it were a profitable location they wouldn\u2019t have closed it. They closed their Embarcadero SF location<\/a> a couple of years ago due to insufficient sales.<\/p>\n I wouldn\u2019t worry about them though \u2014 they still have 18 stores in the Bay Area where you can get your free samples along with your Scotchmallow bonbons and boxes of Nuts \u2019n Chews.<\/p>\nCharlotte Truffles<\/h2>\n
![\"Charlotte](\"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Charlotte-and-her-helper-with-new-bars.jpg\")
<\/p>\nKokak Chocolates<\/h2>\n
![\"Kokak](\"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Kokak-Chocolates-storefront.png\")
<\/p>\nSee\u2019s Candies<\/h2>\n
![\"Sees](\"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Sees-Sunnyvale.png\")
<\/p>\nOn a brighter note<\/h2>\n