The air bit and tore, eating at the cold tears in our eyes while meandering about the West Village. Feet heavy, Chloe and I were laden with the task of searching for our next interviewee. We cut through record stores, pottery barns, and chess shops, all the quaint little places the village had to offer, until we finally found the sweetest thing our eyes had seen: the chocolate store, Li-Lac. Cheery and reinvigorated, we walked in and gazed upon all things dark and expensive (while warming up in the process). The shop was filled with the most decorative and intricately designed sweets I had ever seen. To our right were chocolate globes, champagne bottles, and even a jolly chocolate Santa Claus; to our left were bunny pops, chocolate variety packs, and foot tall chocolate bunnies; high on the top shelves were life sized chocolate footballs and basketballs and even a $198 gargantuan chocolate champagne bottle. The store was Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and I had won the golden ticket.
After browsing the selection, we walked to the front glass counter which displayed all sorts of homemade sweets, including pecan chews, toffee, and odd varieties of dark delight. Behind it were real cacao beans, but the sweetest treat was the kind grandmotherly employee, Elena, who gave us some time to explore her knowledge of the business. We jumped right in. The chocolates we were admiring, we learned are renowned for their molds, which according to Elena, are what Li-Lac is known for. She told us they used old molds. I asked her what she meant by “old.” She replied, saying, “Meaning that they’re tin molds that have been around for —.” Oh, literally old. I felt dumb. Great way to begin.
We learned that this place, by chance, happened to be the first chocolatier business in Manhattan. Despite this, the location we were at was relatively new, having been around for only a year and a half. Elena herself has moved around from multiple store locations during her tenure. Nevertheless, the business only had a few locations throughout the city.
More interestingly, this business’ chocolate factory was based in Chloe’s own neighborhood of Sunset Park, in fact, only a few blocks away from her home. We learned what kind of customers are interested in Li-Lac’s chocolate. Noting that there are multiple store locations, she said, “I worked at Jane St. which is in the West Village, and its… they have a steady clientele of old customers that remembered… that followed them from Christopher St., and most of the customers that come in are very nostalgic. They remember us from when they went to school at St. Luke’s.” She added that “even the kids from NYU will talk about how their grandparents or their mother took them after school and they purchased something.”
However, not all chocolate lovers come through the doors with pure intentions as we came to understand. “Chocolate’s very funny,” she said, “there’s the nostalgic part, and there’s the part where people who come here maybe aren’t in a good mood and they’re looking for chocolate to lift them up, so they’re not the nicest people…” Along with standing on her feet all day, these made up the worst parts of her job.
As long as we went on discussing Elena’s knowledge and history with the business, we could not stop her from doing her job. Customers came and went making us pause our questions for minutes at a time, waiting for her to finish attending to the patrons. Even after they would leave, an industrial heater would then whir loudly, reheating the cool air coming in from outside, making it next to impossible to hear anything. After several minutes of awkwardly waiting for the sound to disappear, we returned to talk to Elena — only to have more customers enter the store, prompting the beginning of the cycle. We hurriedly asked Elena for permissions and photographed her and the store. After profusely thanking her, we left the store, and continued to photograph the storefront. While we weren’t the most eloquent interviewers, we learned a great deal about a “sweet spot” in the city that will be our next go-to for a sugar craving.
