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DANDELION CHOCOLATE

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Valencia or Bust!

November 6, 2012 by Cam

It took a little longer than we’d original planned… ok, a lot longer, but we’ve finally moved in to our permanent home at 740 Valencia St! After doing a bunch of planning, we started packing and moving things on Thursday of last week. We took a bunch of the our semi-portable equipment (melangers, temperers) in the first load:

All loaded up

After that, we packed up a bunch of boxes with all of the stuff we needed and loaded them into the truck:

Caitlin wrangling the pallet jack. Where were they in college?

Tyler and Joey unloading

 Me about to drive the truck back to Dogpatch after dropping off a load at Valencia

The real challenge was moving our 2000lb wrapping machine from 1955 as it doesn’t really fit out of the door at the Dogpatch and we weren’t sure if it’d fit past our counters at Valencia. Fortunately, we had amazing help from Snooky and his team (Vic, Mark, and Sean). Snooky and Vic managed to wrangle the machine into the Dogpatch so they were the perfect set of people to help us get it to Valencia:

Snooky, grinning and planning his attack

Just squeaking out the door

We certainly weren’t gonna lift it by hand…

But that didn’t stop us from pretending we were :)

We had about a 1/4 inch to spare on each side!

Wrapping machine in its new home 

After moving everything over, we still needed clean things up at the Dogpatch space and set everything up at Valencia.

Todd and Maya setting up tables 

Tyler, Chiann, and Maya on the roof ladder 

Tod and Lisa did an amazing job giving the Dogpatch space a much needed scrub down and Erica and Lisa (what a champ!) were hugely helpful in getting things set up at Valencia over the weekend. By Sunday, our new space was ready:

(Photo credit:  Molly DeCoudreaux)

It’s hard to imagine the move having gone any smoother than it did; thank you so much to everyone who made it happen!

READ MORE ABOUT: construction locations
← New Sign
Opening Tomorrow! →

14 Responses

  1. HUGE congratulations! Can’t wait to stop in soon!

    Jessica Ferraro November 6, 2012 at 8:55 am #
  2. Pretty please open by my birthday on 11/14 ?

    Seriously, though, the new place looks fantastic.

    Ben M November 6, 2012 at 10:06 am #
  3. Ben: I think you’re in luck as 11/14 should be the first day the factory/retail area is open to the public! The cafe will be coming a little bit later, tho.

    Cam November 6, 2012 at 10:36 am #
  4. Congratulations on all your success, the place looks brilliant! Looking forward to stopping in next time I am in SF.

    Jade Bentley November 6, 2012 at 11:13 am #
  5. Awesome, congrats!! I’ll actually be in the Mission this evening…I’ll have to drop by and see (at least from the outside). ;)

    Joseph Smarr November 6, 2012 at 11:29 am #
  6. Looks amazing! Looking forward to checking out the new space soon!

    Dominic November 6, 2012 at 11:54 am #
  7. Congratulations, Todd! I will stop by with the baby sometime once you’re open.

    Kathy Cooke November 6, 2012 at 12:29 pm #
  8. YAY congrats!!! Can’t wait to come visit the new place! :)

    Tammy Chi November 6, 2012 at 12:31 pm #
  9. It’s beautiful!!

    Nancy Nystrom November 7, 2012 at 6:26 am #
  10. Well done!

    8 )

    DD November 7, 2012 at 12:37 pm #
  11. Congrats! Can’t wait to visit! Looking forward to seeing you guys this Sunday, too!

    Peggy Butler November 7, 2012 at 3:05 pm #
  12. I’m not in this business and I don’t know anything. But here’s a potentially wrong suggestion you should take with a grain of salt: have holiday gift boxes of some sort, at a couple of different price points. I think you could do very well with those! I myself would buy at least a couple to take to the East Coast for Christmas!

    Matt November 8, 2012 at 3:21 pm #
  13. Date for opening??

    Joel Rosenberg November 12, 2012 at 12:20 pm #
  14. @Matt: I think a holiday gift set is a great idea. I really hope we can get something together in time for the holidays.

    @Joel: The factory and retail (but not the cafe, yet) will be open for limited hours (W-F: noon – 4pm, Sat: 11am – 6pm) starting this Wednesday (11/14)!

    Cam November 12, 2012 at 12:28 pm #

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