Aigner Chocolates
I meet Mark and Rachel a couple years ago and they have been clients ever since. But whenever I go to their shop I feel more like I’m visiting with friends than that I’m there for a job. They’re charming people and while we’re arranging the chocolates to photograph we make a lot of jokes and talk like old friends. That’s something that I love about working with people in hospitality. They’re professionals at making you feel comfortable in their spaces and in their businesses. It’s what they do and their reason to exist and Mark and Rachel are experts at it.
Chocolate is an easy business to be in. Very few people in this world don’t Love chocolate. It’s a smile in a box waiting for you to unwrap it and decide which delicious morsel you want to devour. Because even in the narrow world of chocolates there’s a seemingly endless array of flavors to choose from. Caramel filled nuggets. Chocolate covered cherries. Walnut crusted marshmallow haystacks. Chile flavored white chocolate with mint. The combinations of flavors and designs are seemingly endless and there’s a taste to match each individual person’s desires.
Where the business of selling chocolates gets complicated is in the behind the scenes decisions. Rising labor costs. Finding an retaining staff. Inflated costs of ingredients being shipped from all over the world in a tangled mess of supply chain issues.
Even the business of making people smile can be an aggravating mess that only the most pure masochist can endure. Being a small business owner isn’t easy. It’s a calling. It’s something that I would only ever recommend if you can’t possibly imagine yourself doing anything else. And for the right people it’s very rewarding.
