We have scheduled our Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting with the Zebulon and Knightdale Chambers of Commerce. This is going to be a joint ribbon cutting with both chambers at one time.Â
Date: Friday, August 3rd, 2007
Time: 11:30am
Place: 1300A N Arendell Ave., Zebulon, NCÂ 27597
Who’s Invited: Everyone
Feel free to comment if you will be able to attend. Or, you can email me at melodie@thechocolateworks.com if you’d like to attend.
It’s all starting to come together……slowly.
Phone is connected. Will be testing the phone number this weekend before posting it on anything printed or online.
Electricity & other utilities have been connected.
Insurance taken care of.
We have started removing the flooring and getting it ready for the installers. We had to take out the indoor/outdoor carpet in the “kitchen” area so that we could put in vinyl flooring. And this is such a HUGE job even though it is not a huge room. The adhesive under the flooring is really tough to get up. The carpet has already been ripped out. And now, we have the tiring task of scraping up all the adhesive on the concrete floor. It’s going to be a loooooong weekend I’m sure.Â
Today we will be working on removing the adhesive from the floor. And I will also be doing some cleaning in other areas of the store (bathroom, windows, cabinets, etc).
We still need to order our sign.Â
And we are STILL waiting to hear back from the original plumber who was the lowest bidder for the plumbing work. The last plumber was more than 3 times higher than the first plumber.Â
Once the kitchen area is done we can get started on the rest of the work and move all the counters and cabinets into the kitchen.
 I am NOT going to forget my camera today so that I can get some pictures of the progress and post here.Â
It’s official. Our new home is:
1300A N Arendell Ave.
Zebulon, NCÂ 27597
We signed the lease today. We have moved cabinets and countertops in. And next we schedule to have the flooring and plumbing done so that we can start setting up shop. We are headed now to pick up the vinyl for the flooring.Â
Pictures coming soon.
Well, we have finally decided on a location. We have decided to go with Location #2 in Zebulon, NC. Â
 Today we had the plumber out to take a look at what will be necesary to get the sinks installed. And it looks like it is not going to be much work at all and well within our budget.Â
Tomorow we will be going to several flooring places to get prices on flooring and making our selection.Â
We sign the lease on Saturday. And hopefully by next week we will have begun working on the space. We are shooting for an opening date of August 1st or sooner. But by the time the work is done and inspections scheduled and completed I’m sure we’ll be right at August 1st. The building does not need any painting thankfully. So it’s just a matter of having the contractors come in and do the plumbing and flooring.
I will post the address and pictures as soon as the lease is signed and the work begins.
We have been asked by many of our current customers if we would do dessert catering. Well, you will all be happy to know that we will start light dessert catering very soon. This is something that will be added after we have the storefront as we need more kitchen space in order to offer something such as this.Â
We can tell you that it will include some or all of the following:
- Chocolate Dipped Berries (all kinds, seasonal)
- Pretzels
- Chips
- Marshmallows
- Peanut and Pecan Turtlez
- Bon Bonz
- Truffles
- Cookies
- and much more
We will be offering platters for pick up or delivery as well as a serving staff if that is what is needed. These services will be perfect for any wedding, birthday, anniversary or other event or occasion where catering is needed. Prices and product availability will be posted shortly.Â
This was a wonderful event. We had an exhibitor booth in the Knightdale Chamber of Commerce Business Expo last week. There were nearly 100 exhibitors. We had our booth filled with all sorts of chocolate sampling platters for visitors to indulge in. Samples included Chocolate Dipped Strawberries, Chocolate Dipped Potato Chips, Chocolate Dipped Pretzels, Mini Taster Spoons, and we had a chocolate fountain there as well.
The Knightdale Chamber of Commerce did a wonderful job promoting and organizing this event. They had a food court that was just fabulous with food from Rudinos, Chick-Fil-A, Moe’s, Lowe’s Foods, Sweet Tomatoes, Coco Cola, and several others. I don’t know how many visitors there were but they were expecting between 800 and 1000 visitors. I know we stayed busy all day long. And we thoroughly enjoyed meeting everyone that visited our booth.
For more information about the Knightdale Chamber of Commerce please be sure to visit www.knightdalechamber.org.
We will be posting pictures of our booth at the Expo shortly.
Location #2 seems to be our best bet so far. It is much smaller than location #1 and we would not have room for the “Open Studio”. BUT, we also would not be looking at the difficulty in getting opened for business as we would in Clayton. And the area is growing rapidly.Â
Location #2 is located in the town of Zebulon. It is a small space but plenty of room for a beautiful kitchen. We will need to have plumbing work done in order to get our sinks installed. But so far the planning department has been absolutely wonderful to work with. Very cooperative. Very informative. And they seem very eager to have a chocolate business in town.Â
We have already purchased the kitchen cabinets and countertops that would need to be installed (these will work in any location we ultimately end up in). And the flooring has also been selected.Â
We are actually very excited about this location as it would enable us to keep our overhead low which will ultimately mean our prices will not have to increase to cover additional overhead expenses.Â
At the moment we are just waiting to hear back from several plumbers to schedule dates and times for estimates to be given for the plumbing work that would need to be done. This is basically going to be the deciding factor with this location (the cost of plumbing work that needs to be done).
We are currently looking at 2 different locations.
Location Number 1 is in the town of Clayton. While we absolutely love the location we are really hesitant to sign the lease. The planning department has been giving us a difficult time in getting into the building. We have been told by several in the planning department that we will need to submit architectural plans before doing anything and before pulling any permits. Here’s the thing, we are NOT making any structural changes to this building. The plumbing is already stubbed out where we need the sinks to be, the walls are already in place, there is nothing that we need to do to prepare this building for our occupation other than a good cleaning and a coat of paint on the walls and the installation of the sinks. They are saying that our moving into the building is considered a change of use and would require all sorts of inspections and the building would need to be brought up to code. The funny thing is that they don’t seem to have any record of ANY previous inspections so can’t even tell me if it is up to code from the last inspection when the last business moved in (only a year ago and it would have been a change of use which according to them indicates there should have been an inspection a year ago). THEN, we were told that if it is not up to code it is our responsibility as the new tenant to do so as well as pay any fines for any permits the previous tenants may not have pulled before doing any work.Â
So, with all this in mind we are really considering throwing in the towel with this location. Which is a shame because it would have been a perfect fit. There are already rooms blocked off (one for an office/storage, one for a kitchen with all the plumbing already run, one for an “Open Studio”, and one for retail). We had planned to use the “Open Studio” for little mini classes on candy making/decorating as well as cookie decorating classes. This would have been perfect for Mommy & Me groups, homeschooling groups, school field trips, etc. This would have been an excellent addition to the town for the local residents as there would have been activities that the customers could participate in hands on. Something fun for the family to do on a weekend outing.Â
While this would have been a perfect location, we just cannot see going through all the town is requiring us to do in order to open our business in downtown. It’s very excessive for what our business entails.Â
So, on to the next potential site.Â
We are in the process of securing a new storefront for The Chocolate Works. We will keep everyone posted here in the journal.  It has been quite some time since we had a brick & mortar storefront and we have really missed the ability to interact with our customers in person. One of the greatest things about our company is the individual and personal attention each one of our customers receive from our staff. And the best way to bring this back in full force is to have a storefront where we can meet and greet all of our customers once again.