High rent, rising food and packaging costs, fewer customers. It’s a trifecta of business killers that has hit local eateries hard in recent months. And now, it’s come for a Baltimore candy store.
Charm City Chocolate quietly shut down its brick-and-mortar store last week after a decade on Hampden’s Avenue. “We’ve been really lucky to be doing for as long as we did. It was living a dream,” said co-owner Todd Zimmerman.
But more recently the shop has struggled to keep up with surging prices while facing a shrinking customer base. In the past year alone, cacao costs have doubled, Zimmerman said.
Nevertheless, its owners are hopeful that Charm City Chocolate could get a second life elsewhere. “We’re going to do what we can to find a space where the rent’s more affordable,” Zimmerman said.
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Prior to his career as a chocolatier, Zimmerman worked as a designer and art director for The Daily Record while his wife Michelle Deal-Zimmerman was an editor for The Baltimore Sun. (Full disclosure: I worked with Deal-Zimmerman at The Sun and she has gifted me chocolates from the shop over the years.)
A 2014 health scare for Zimmerman gave the couple a shift in perspective and they decided to pursue a long-held dream of opening a chocolate shop in Baltimore. His parents also owned a chocolate shop in South Carolina where the couple would help out during holidays.
They launched their Hampden storefront in 2016 when business was booming in the neighborhood, then considered up-and-coming.
“When we first opened, we were lucky to get a spot on the Avenue,” Zimmerman said. They decked out the shop with retro flourishes like jars filled with old-timey candies, and created special edition treats such as chocolate crabs as an homage to Maryland. As social media gained currency, they drew inspiration from online trends, creating hot chocolate bombs that melt in your mug, and more recently, their take on the viral Dubai chocolate bar, which quickly sold out.
It was only after they opened that store that they learned Charm City Chocolate was among the first Black-owned businesses to operate in Hampden, a neighborhood with a long and troubling history of racism. Deal-Zimmerman, who is Black, recalls facing some ignorant attitudes among customers who saw her behind the counter and asked her to tell the owner what a nice shop it was.
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Nearly a decade later, she’s gratified to see how much has changed in Hampden, which is now home to places like the Urban Oyster and Tia’s Italian Ice. “I have been so buoyed to see so many Black women open businesses in the neighborhood, and that’s one of the reasons I hate to leave,” she said.
During the pandemic lockdowns, Charm City Chocolate overhauled its business model to focus on online orders that customers could place and pick up in the rear of the shop. The couple continued to keep their retail space closed after stores and businesses began opening up, saying shoppers appreciated the convenience.
But over time, the economics of chocolate have become increasingly difficult to navigate. As of January, cacao was selling for around $10,000 per ton, or more than triple the average cost in 2015, according to data from the International Cocoa Organization. Other costs, like packaging, have risen nearly 30% in just the past few months. “I do feel like that is something that’s going to really impact a lot of businesses,” Zimmerman said.
Their clientele, too, has contracted. Pre-pandemic, they often saw shoppers from Baltimore County drive in to Hampden to pick up orders. “Our last few years were mostly people from the neighborhood,” Zimmerman said. He thinks other businesses in the neighborhood are likely also feeling the strain, pointing to multiple vacancies on their block.
The company still sells chocolate through Eddie’s of Roland Park, Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and a few other outlets. And Zimmerman said they may continue to produce some wholesale orders.
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They are also keeping their website open, and exploring cottage food laws that Maryland relaxed during the pandemic, which could allow them to produce chocolate at their home or in a shared commercial kitchen.
But, Zimmerman said, “our pipe dream would be to find a smaller place where the rent was more affordable.”
In the meantime, they’re going on vacation and Zimmerman is considering starting a podcast. He already has a possible name picked out: “The Bitter Chocolatier.”
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