Monday morning, and I’m on till, directing the flow of traffic through the store. Like Captain Kirk on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, I control the pace and tempo of the S.S. Mink Café as it hurtles through the space chocolate continuum.
I’m taking orders, making change, directing most of these early morning office workers to the end of the bar to pick up their beverages, when a middle aged woman in a mis-matched pantsuit and knit cap walks up to the counter, and asks me what we do here.
“We’re a chocolate shop with coffee”, I tell her, in support of the very large illuminated sign outside that says Mink A Chocolate Café.
“Oh, I’m such a chocoholic”, she says. “Where do you keep it all then?”
A momentary pang of incredulousness washes over me, because she’s standing right in front of a large glass countertop display of fresh, handmade chocolate bon bons. Maybe that fine knit cap on this hot fall day has made her brain swell, so I give her the benefit of the doubt, and wave my hand majestically over the display case and say to her, “I have these individual chocolates for your pleasure, and those over there are chocolate bars. Thirty two different flavors, all handmade”.
She turns back towards the counter, studies the bon bons hard, asking me how I get the little pictures on each one. I explain that they are transfer sheets that are applied during the enrobing process, and that each unique image was created to identify the flavor of the particular chocolate.
“Oh, they’re so cute”, she says. “I’m such a chocoholic”.
“Yeh, I remember you saying that”, I think to myself, biting the inside of my cheek.
“So what’s this one?” she asks, pointing to the one with the coffee cup on it. I realize not everything in life is self-explanatory. “That has espresso in the ganache”, I reply.
“Oh. What about this”, she asks, and I tell her, and so it goes, down the line, one by one, until we get to the chocolate with the picture of a Greyhound on it.
“That’s a Greyhound”, I answer, “and just like the cocktail, it’s made with vodka and grapefruit”.
“Oh, do you have any with poodles? I love poodles”.
“No ma’am, I’m sorry I don’t”.
“That’s too bad. Maybe I’ll come back when you have poodles”.
And with that, she turns and saunters to the front door, and leaves. A stated chocoholic left a chocolate shop without any chocolate because she loves poodles more.
I pick up where I left off on till, sensing that today is going to be one of those days. Maybe I should read my horoscope just to make sure.
Marc Lieberman
Mink Chocolates Inc.,
Mink A Chocolate Cafe Ltd.
Call the store: 604.633.2451
Call my mobile: 604.376.3464
Call toll free: 1.866.283.5181
Shop: www.minkchocolates.com
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In Person: 863 Hastings Street West, Vancouver, BC V6C 3N9
Nine out of every ten persons say they love chocolate. The tenth lies.
- Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
