Minkchocolates

What’s for Lunch?

It always delights me when people come into the Café and comment on the design, or the music, or most importantly, the fact it smells like chocolate, just as you would expect, and not cleaning solution or restaurant grease. That, I suppose, is both the upside and downside to not having sandwiches or deli products. I’m true to my concept but missing a profit center.

My customers tell me they love the ambience so much they want to come here and eat, instead of elsewhere. I recognize there is no shortage of places in the neighborhood. Can’t one have lunch down the street, and finish at Mink with coffee and chocolate?

Apparently everyone is tight for time, and one office outing for the group usually means one destination. For a while now, taking a cue from the ornate silver trays we use for our plated food and beverage service, I’ve imagined a Russian Tea Room sort of approach to augmenting the menu.

I’ve got it. A eureka moment. Blinis and caviar!  I’m a genius. I call my wife for validation. After all, she’s a big part of my inspiration at Mink. I named a chocolate bar after her – Mermaid’s Choice. My muse. My siren. She’ll love it!

I catch her nose to the grindstone and ankle deep in pharmaceutical protocols. (She’s the smart one in the family). I make my pitch.

Her response is deflating. “Did you hit your head on something”?

On second thought, maybe fish roe on tiny pancakes isn’t the answer.

But hey, I’m not discouraged. It will come to me. Most probably in the middle of the night, like all my best ideas, which means I’ll scribble something on a post-it note and drop it over the side of the bed. In the morning half a dozen multi colored squares of paper with my illegible scrawl will be stuck to my slippers as I shuffle downstairs for breakfast, ready to tackle another day; working to keep the Mink machine moving forward. What’s for lunch? I’m not sure yet. I’ll keep you posted.

Sincerely,

Marc Lieberman

Mink Chocolates Inc.,
Mink A Chocolate Cafe Ltd.
863 Hastings Street West,
Vancouver, BC V6C 3N9

Call the store: 604.633.2451
Call my mobile: 604.376.3464

Call toll free: 1.866.283.5181

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Nine out of every ten persons say they love chocolate. The tenth lies.
– Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Chocolate melts

Remember the snow last December? Save for Jason, none of the Mink staffers scheduled to work December 24^th, the last kick at Christmas chocolate shopping, could make it in to work that day.

Weather was a factor through Valentine’s Day. It was tough to drive in. Walking on uncleared streets was hard on the Hush Puppies. The general consensus was not to venture out unless it was an absolute necessity. Hats off to the legions of Mink fans who kept us busy.

Not concerned then about the melting point of chocolate, I was more obsessed with finding an eco-friendly product to melt the ice in front of the Café. Fast forward five months, and we’re just coasting into another significant weather event. This time, it’s the heat, and again I’ve got melting on my mind.

My wife’s cousin Evan went to cottage country last summer, taking a large bag of Mink Chocolate with him for family and friends. He rented a car at the Toronto airport, and drove for hours in the summer sun, anxious to get on the lake.

Evan has multiple degrees. Kind, gentle, funny, dedicated, and smart. He loaded the rental car with all his gear. The chocolates unceremoniously left on the rear shelf under the back window. He got to the cabin and his selection of Mermaid’s Choice, The Girls’ Favourite, and The Sporting Life was a molten puddle of chocolate goo. Sixty bucks down the drain.

I know people know chocolate melts. That it should be kept in a cool, dark place, preferably around 18C. But I remind them anyways. It’s my job. I dropped the ball with Evan.

Every summer, there’s a point where Dave Letterman sends Bif Henderson out on 53^rd Street to see how long it takes an egg to fry on the sidewalk.

Here on West Hastings Street, a hand crafted 38% milk chocolate Mink Original chocolate bar clocks less than six minutes to undergo the metamorphosis from solid to liquid. Just doing my job.

Best regards,

Marc Lieberman

Mink Chocolates Inc.,
Mink A Chocolate Cafe Ltd.
863 Hastings Street West,
Vancouver, BC V6C 3N9

Call the store: 604.633.2451
Call my mobile: 604.376.3464

Visit our site: www.minkchocolates.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/minkchocolates
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mink.chocolates
Read the blog: http://blog.minkchocolates.com
Search us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/

Nine out of every ten persons say they love chocolate. The tenth lies.
– Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Window watching

The prettiest view out the 45 feet of window frontage the Café has onto the park between us and the Vancouver Club are the cherry blossoms on four magnificently well proportioned trees; two each that flank the front door. They bloom for two weeks in April, thereabouts.

 Mid July, when the blossoms are gone, and the sun is out, and people are strolling instead of rushing, and the in-desperate-need-of-a-belt panhandler guy is working them with one handed tenacity, we sell a lot more cold chocolate drinks than hot chocolate drinks.

 A couple peers in. They debate. They enter.

 After a long hard look at the menu, the man asks our lead barista Ben One, (because we have two Ben’s. Both left handed. Both here on work visas. Hmmm….)

 “What do you call your Frappucino’s?”

 Ben One is quick, and deadpan. “I’m not sure. What does Starbucks call their blended drinks?”

 She shrugs. Table three laughs loud and spontaneously about something that has nothing to do with this. He pays for two.

 “Would you mind making them extra frappy?”  On it.

 Alistair from Elysian Coffee rang up. He was vetting a former Mink staffer. I had good things to say about her. And she could sell chocolate.

 He recommended a book called Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Keeping and Coaching the Best People. I’ve got it on order from the Oakridge branch of the Vancouver Public Library.

 The time we spoke before, I had called him. He answered his mobile, even though he was in Central America, judging Cup of Excellence and getting hands-on coffee farm experience. The walking epitome of coffee culture, Alistair is. And father of a five year old.

 That’s why I order books from the library now. My 17 month old son likes the library. More importantly, the librarians like that my son likes the library. Will he grow to prefer Wikipedia to the Dewey Decimal System? Will the keepers of the stacks disappear in his lifetime?

 These questions, and a host of other things to ponder, keep me perched in front of the window, watching the people, cognizant of the fact that the next time the blossoms bloom, two of the biggest chocolate holidays of the year will have come and gone (Christmas and Valentine’s Day) as well as the 2010 Winter Olympics.

 And with that, no doubt, some other couple, from somewhere else, asking of Ben One something that makes him laugh.

Marc Lieberman

Mink Chocolates Inc.,
Mink A Chocolate Cafe Ltd.
863 Hastings Street West,
Vancouver, BC V6C 3N9

Call the store: 604.633.2451
Call my mobile: 604.376.3464

Visit our site: www.minkchocolates.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/minkchocolates
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mink.chocolates
Read the blog: http://blog.minkchocolates.com
Search us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/

Nine out of every ten persons say they love chocolate. The tenth lies.
– Anthelme Brillat-Savarin