Exactly ten years ago I opened a chocolate shop in the back of a Coney Island down the street from Heather’s grandpa’s house. She bought and brought a very fancy bluetooth speaker so I could have (my beloved) music 😭💕 and a bottle of champagne to crack against the building, thus blessing the "voyage" ahead. The thing is, I had between $7-$8 to my name, essentially nonexistent insurance and required my hands to work so, having limited bottle smashing experience, I opted for a (still very nervous) "chuck" (to view: https://www.instagram.com/p/C9mpPWzO7VL/).
That day, from friends and supporters, the phrase repeated most often at the counter that day was some version of, "I can’t believe you actually did it." I wasn't expecting that. It was funny to me because I had been obsessively talking, sketching and testing this stuff since I was 19. I'd drink coffee with friends getting wildly angry about packaging and Forest Gump quotes or drink beer while measuring people’s mouths to determine the "perfect two polite bite size" for seven years by then. I had five chocolate-related diplomas, for goodness sake! It felt sweet find find out that my people had maybe thought I was insane and loved me anyway for so long.
I think it took me ten years to catch up to their comment. For most of our history, when the production team left for the night I would finish up whatever before Lou (shimmied) and I (climbed) the "long" commute up the stairs and stop to look around the manufactory for an item. I would try to convince myself that I own, not the business, not the building, but just one hotel pan. As if thinking “that’s my hotel pan, I own that hotel pan” would help me to understand that I was literally and physically standing in my own dream.
Small business times, after all, are not always super "dream"y. Plus, the wild soul of this whole place has always felt (rightly) less "mine" and more a mesh of “wee” magical, badass, ride or die energetic contributions from generations of big-hearted good humans in blue (or green or grey) button-clad collars. This history of this place is ultimately collective and that of The Babes Babes Babes.
Our future is too! This past year these little moments started bubbling up! A "green table" Ops Team meeting would be super intensely exciting enough to make me think “whoa, I can't believe I get to work on a team like this- what a dream. Wait, aren't I self employed?! OMG wait!!”. Or, we'd have some tear-jerking customer service conversation and while sobbing and laughing at the little cluster of desks up front I would realize after a moment that this place we built HAS a customer service department.
I'd think of Nellie sitting on the floor in 650 sq. ft. and on a pile of papers, slinging tiny puns and patient smiles to keep cute customers as delighted as could be. Or I'd start head-math-ing Margie and Borna's insane shell-making speed to the (then) unimaginable production line that Mahmud oversees now. This year I started to think, " I cannot believe we actually did it!"
As it turns out, good people really do deserve good chocolate and we aren't done. Generations of "Babes Babes Babes" have come and one thing has always rung true: Hell or high water, you can't take us down. Plus, if I am honest, I haven't completed a to do list in far over ten years. There plenty "Bon stuff" left to be done and it's likely that most of Bon has not been done at all! We will be here for a while.
But for now at least, I want to stop to say thank you. To every customer, neighbor, old lady down the street, delivery person, friend, landlord, family member, vendor, mentor, cute dog, stray cat, cutie lil baby, UPS driver, banker, nearby restaurant and bar owner, window washer/voicemail personality (here's lookin' at you, Cleo), past and present, thank you for this wonderful, wild ride.
I can't believe we actually did it.
Photo by Julia Johnson for Adobe
