I was happy to learn about the second tenant in the upcoming 740 Valencia Street location, which will hold The Abbot’s Cellar and a third tenant. Hopefully open by this fall will be DANDELION CHOCOLATE, a small-batch, bean-to-bar chocolate factory from partners Todd Masonis and Cameron Ring (with the help of Alice Nystrom). There will also be a café for people to taste and experience their chocolate. Mmmm, chocolate.
If you’ve been to the New Taste Marketplace recently, you may be familiar with Dandelion’s bars, which they are currently making out of a garage lab in East Palo Alto. They have visited cacao farmers and done incredible amounts of research over the past couple years, including building their own machines. They currently roast, crack, sort, winnow, grind, conche, and temper small batches of beans, and then mold and package each bar by hand, adapting their process with each new bag of beans to bring out the best, individual flavors.
The landlord and his team have been hard at work for the last few months getting everything ready, and are still waiting on some permits to complete their part of the build-out, but once those permits come through, Dandelion should be able to start construction. You can follow Dandelion’s progress (and upcoming appearances) on Twitter. 740 Valencia St. at 18th St.
Photo from Dandelion Chocolate.
