The 16th Street Factory Opens April 19th!

April 15, 2019 by Karen Solomon

After four long years of construction, permit mayhem, and more setbacks than Annie would care to recall, our new home on 16th Street between Alabama and Harrison in SF will open its doors to the public on April 19th. Inside you’ll find our largest chocolate factory to date; the comfortable sit-down Bloom chocolate salon serving breakfast and afternoon desserts; a multipurpose classroom and event space; a casual cafe for hot chocolate, mochas and pastries on-the-go, and our third retail shop in San Francisco.

The Factory

If you’re interested in chocolate machines, you should come see Caitlin and her production team’s new hydraulic-powered Bean Room, their bright yellow 70-kilo Diedrich roaster, vintage Refining Room ball mills and roll mills, and so much more. Choose your own adventure for getting to know how we make chocolate: either sit in the new bleacher seating sipping a Mission Mocha, or sign up for a tour of the factory floor. Speaking of tours…

Classes and Tours

School is in session in our flexible, multipurpose classroom and event space, and Cynthia and the Chocolate Experiences team have an expanded menu of chocolate classes, tasting sessions, making sessions, factory tours, and trips to origin to deepen your knowledge of craft chocolate at every level. Tasting, History, Sourcing, and Making courses are now available for sign up, as well as numerous kid’s classes, hands-on family learning, and family-friendly factory tours. We now have the capacity for private events like team building, baby showers, birthday parties, or whatever kind of gathering you’re planning. Our philosophy has always been that learning is more fun when there’s a hot chocolate at the end.

The Chocolate Salon

Bloom, our chocolate salon, is nestled next to the windows that face the street, and for weeks now, curious eyes have been peeping the glimmering brass wall and ceiling tile, the deco-inspired geometric tile, oversized banquettes, and the supermodern lighting. Lisa and the kitchen team are putting the finishing touches on recipe testing, plating, and menu planning the likes of market quiche with greens and cacao fruit vinaigrette, and brûlèed brioche with Camino Verde, Ecuador chocolate hazelnut spread and cocoa nib cream. And Indica and Michelle in Creative have been hunting down teaspoons, saucers, serving vessels, and so much more to match the quality and thoughtfulness of the food they will serve.

Café and Retail Shop

If you’ve grown used to grabbing a mocha at the Ferry Building or on Valencia Street, you’ll also be able to get your drink fix here. There’s a full café onsite serving all manner of grab-and-go hot, cold, chocolate, and coffee drinks. In addition to our full pastry selection, there will also be a few new menu items in the mix, such as Kouign-Amann with a generous dollop of chocolate ganache at the center. The retail shop will stock all of our gift boxes, plus single bars and bar sets, and of course, tastes of all of our origins to help you pick a new favorite.

We cannot even begin to calculate the labor and the love that have made this dream of ours a physical space that we can now touch and see. The first batches of beans are roasting, the tempered chocolate is flowing, and that familiar scent of fresh chocolate is wafting into every room. And very soon, you’ll be here with us to engage with the best chocolate we can make.

Closer Every Day: Construction Update and a Peek Inside Our 16th Street Factory

March 11, 2019 by Annie Kamin

Annie, our Chief of Staff, has been working on a Herculean task for, quite literally, years. She is in charge of the buildout of our just-out-of-reach 16th Street Factory in San Francisco. From plumbing snafus to signature cards, electrical work to signage, she’s left her mark on nearly every bolt, hinge, and joist of the space (opening in about a month). This story is her recall of the trials by fire of one of the largest projects of her life, and a preview of what’s inside.

Much like an expertly crafted bar of single-origin chocolate, building a chocolate factory takes equal parts skill, patience, determination, finesse, creativity, and, in all honesty, perhaps a whisper of insanity.

It’s fun, but it definitely has not been easy.

We’ve been working on building our 16th Street Factory for over four years, and at long last we are in the final stages of construction. I’ve been working on this project for just about two years now, and it has been hard to imagine this space as anything other than a construction site filled with the familiar and comforting sounds of hammering, welding, and drilling.

Chocolate machines inside the 16th Street Factory

Say hello to the TECHNOCHOC

For the past few months, we’ve been moving past more of the work that yields invisible progress (conduit runs to junction boxes, refrigerant lines, anything plumbing related) and we’ve started working on the finishes throughout the factory. With each light illuminated and each counter installed, the space is brought to life just a bit more.

It’s slightly bewildering, but even more thrilling, to think of the day in the not-so-distant future when I’ll be able to enter a room using a door with a handle instead of walking through the giant void where a window is supposed to be. The chaotic hammering, sawing, and drilling will soon be replaced by the quiet hum of the roaster, the gentle whoosh of the winnower, and the hypnotic white noise of our stone melangers hard at work.

I never thought that a question as simple as, “When will you be open?” could be so difficult to answer. We are so close to completion, but still have the lingering uncertainty of our final inspections ahead of us. Are there enough exit signs? Are the soap dispensers in all of the right places? Will they tell us we need ANOTHER PERMIT? If we manage to pass all of these inspections with flying colors, with colors, or even with a simple checkmark, we’ll be ready to open around the end of April. If we don’t, well, we’ll fix what needs to be fixed and try again the next week. Regardless, we are in the final stages of construction, and the building will without a doubt be open to the public soon…very soon.

Banquettes in the Dandelion Chocolate 16th Street Factory

Banquettes in progress

When you work on a project all day, every day for years, it can be easy to lose sight of the scale and the beauty of exactly what it is you’re doing. We’re building something that has some elements that San Francisco hasn’t seen in decades, and others that the city has yet to experience.

Yes, but…what’s inside??

The 16th Street Factory will have a café that is reminiscent of our Valencia St. location, but it will be slightly smaller and geared more toward folks who want to stop in, grab a Mission Mocha and a cookie (yes, for breakfast), and get to work.

Melangers making chocolate in the 16th Street Factory

The melangers are spinning on our first batches of chocolate made in the space

There is also the option of following a not-so-secret path that starts at the café and leads you down a small set of stairs, past our circa 1920’s freight elevator, and onto our catwalk that provides an intimate look at the roasting, winnowing, and melanging processes. At the end of the catwalk is our bleacher seating, where anyone who wishes to visit the factory can sit, relax, and watch our chocolate makers hard at work.

Chocolate salon inside the 16th Street Factory

The chocolate salon is underway

Sound exciting? That’s only a third of the factory! Directly adjacent to our café is a gleaming, gorgeous room that is home to our chocolate salon, an elevated pastry and chocolate dining experience that will offer a decadent breakfast menu, our chocolatey take on afternoon tea, and eventually, plated desserts in the evening. We’ve applied for a beer and wine license for the space, but, shockingly, we’ve hit a few snags and we are still working on securing it.

Our Chocolate Experiences team will be offering classes, both new and classic, and more opportunities for private events and event rental in the space. We also have a small amount of workspace where our teams can plan and coordinate to help the business run.

We are so proud of what we’ve built and we cannot wait to share it with you all. Stay tuned for exciting updates on our progress, an opening date, and more via our newsletter and Instagram. I’m looking forward to hosting you in our newest factory very, very soon.

Office space inside the Dandelion Chocolate 16th Street Factory

Upstairs office space in the works