Alison Nelson, owner and co-founder of Chocolate Bar NYC, sipped her first cup of coffee with her father at the age of 8 and began serving coffee at St. William's BINGO night when she was 12. By the time she hit her teenage years, she was an avid coffee consumer. Alison put herself through college on the tips of customers at top-notch New York coffee shops including 52 Irving, Zido's, Once Upon a Tart and Heaven and has always wanted to open her own little place serving the best coffees and teas available.
CZ: Alison, when did you decide to open the Chocolate Bar?
Alison Nelson: In January of 2002 I was working as an event production manager, and actually I went to school to become a writer. As everyone knows, when you pursue the arts you work in restaurants, bakeries, and cafes, and every time I’ve got myself a "real" job I would find myself wanting to go back, to be in the environment where’s interaction to the customers, and in the kitchen. And I had an idea of doing a neighborhood shop, take a coffee shop and make it into a chocolate shop, where people would be comfortable coming in, and getting to know you. So in early 2002 I found a person interested in investing, and four months later we’ve opened this shop. The other store, down in Long Beach Island, just opened this Memorial Day weekend. And that was a collaborative project with my parents, who have a Bed and Breakfast down there. There, the summers are extremely busy because it’s a beach town, and here it’s a little slower. So it just seemed logical business wise, and then on the emotional level it’s just great to be with my family.
CZ: Why chocolate?
Alison Nelson: I love chocolate. One of the things about chocolate that is fascinating to me is the American perspective on it. I grew up in Queens, and my family is Irish so everything was about beer and whisky—all the good quality stuff. But when it came to chocolate all they knew was Hershey’s…you know it’s all an American mentality. The best chocolates out there when I was a kid were Whitman’s Sampler of Russel Stover. I didn’t know that there’s this whole other world because my family was not into it. So when I started working in bakeries and cafes, and I’ve seen pastry chefs working with chocolate, and tasted it, I thought "Wow, this is amazing!" And the reason why people don’t buy better chocolate it’s not that they are afraid of trying new flavors or they’re afraid they wouldn’t like it, but because it seemed inaccessible to them.
CZ: How many chocolate makers do you work with right now?
Alison Nelson: There are three chocolate makers I’m working with. Andrew Shotts who is on 23rd Street. Also Ilene Shane which has a company called Sweet Bliss, and they are located in Chelsea. And then some of our bars are done by Andrew, and we’ve moved some of them over to a larger factory in New Jersey, who produces out frosted bars.
CZ: Do you have your own line of products too?
Alison Nelson: We don’t make anything on premises. We have our own recipes for our Retro Bars and for the Truffles, and also for the baked goods. And then we have our teas here, we’ve worked on a personal tea blend to go along with our chocolates. We also have our 12 signature bars that we are making with Sebastian. When I first opened my intention was to never even necessarily make our own chocolate, but eventually while working with Jacques, and Andrew and Ilene I’ve known more about the industry, and one of the things that they all did was making chocolates that were only accessible if you’d stay in a really nice hotel, or eat in a very nice restaurant, because that’s where their lines were sold. So we wanted to bring that to all the New Yorkers, this was our initial intention. And then while working with them I felt like trying new things, and creating our own recipes.
CZ: Are you offering any tastings here?
Alison Nelson: We’re doing open tastings about 4 times a year. That’s when we put a sign on the store and people can call us and make reservations. We do more often ones for companies, or bachelorette parties, or showers, birthday parties. People are calling us, so we’d do a tasting and we’d explain a little bit of the history of chocolate, sometime we do pairings with wine, or champagne, or Port. And usually, towards the end, after we’ve eaten all this chocolate, we’d have a questions and answers session, so people can actually find out more about chocolate in general. It’s true that people are more knowledgeable now than they were four years ago, and I think that Food Network has a great contribution to it at the national level. Because opening a store in New Jersey now, kind of brought us back were we were four years ago—not a lot of people know as much as New Yorkers do about chocolate. But they mention about the pastry chef competitions they watch on TV though, so that makes a big difference.
CZ: Do people buy more chocolate now than 4 years ago?
Alison Nelson: Definitely, our sales have increased. But back then it was more of a snickers shop thing, people could get a snickers bar for 75 cents, and we’re selling a little truffle for $1.30. Now people spend more money for good quality. I remember my dad—I’ve always associated this with the coffee story—my dad is a big coffee drinker. He would get the deli cup of coffee every day, and Dunkin Donuts was really the cream of the crop back then, so he was saying that it’d be crazy to spend $4 for a cup of coffee. And now he would sop to a high end coffee shop and he would get his nice, dark coffee, of a much better quality.
CZ: What trends do you see in the industry?
Alison Nelson: From what I see, more chocolate shops will be opening, and the more upscale chocolate market will be a great place to do business. Even the little deli where I’m shopping is carrying Lindt and Scharffen Berger. Also, more supermarkets across the country start carrying more artisanal chocolates. When Hershey’s is buying a company like Scharffen Berger they really need their entire market, so I’m thinking that in two years, you’ll be able to go into a grocery store anywhere and be able to buy a 72% cocoa bar off the shelf.
CZ: What’s your favorite chocolate?
Alison Nelson: If I had to pick one I would have to say the salted caramel.
