Santa Rosa artisan chocolate shop set to close following Tubbs Fire

SANTA ROSA, Calif. - The ripple effects of the Sonoma County firestorm have claimed another business: an award-winning chocolate shop that had been open almost seven years. 

The shop called Recherche du Plaisir, or "Search for Pleasure" in French, is located in a strip mall on Cleveland Avenue. 

The businesses there survived the October Tubbs Fire that took many homes and stores nearby.
But the past seven months have been a slower moving financial disaster.

"We knew within a week after Christmas that it was going to happen," said chocolatier Lucy Gustafson, owner and chef. "Normally in November and December, I'd have 15 to 20 large corporate orders, but this year I had two, it was a humongous drop."  

Thursday, longtime customers who have heard about Gustafson's closure, were making sure to drop in for some truffles, macaroons, or chocolate bars. 

"This is awesome," exclaimed regular Jonathan Taylor, savoring a truffle.

Taylor was one of the shop's first customers and has become Gustafson's unofficial taste tester, when she is fine-tuning her flavors. "Have a piece of chocolate, you will taste the passion," said Taylor, "and it's just sad to lose the passion. here's so little of it left." 

Gustafson plans to make Saturday her final day in business, so she can provide sweets for Mother's Day. 

It's a bittersweet time, because she is relieved to let go of the financial burden, but sorry to lose her connection to the community.

Her hand-made, hand-packed confections have been part of many celebrations. 

"My regular customers were really loyal, every week like clockwork," Gustafson said, "chocolate for every holiday, every birthday, every get- together with friends and family."  

The firestorm that ravaged the nearest neighborhoods displaced her customers, and the neighborhood rebuilds will take a few years. 

Two hotels she counted on for catering orders were destroyed as well.  

"Half of my customers are crying, some are angry, some are sad or frustrated, because the community has already suffered such a loss," said Gustafson, "and I'm this little nothing, but I was still a source of pleasure, so to close is another sad connection to the fire, and I don't want to finish that way." 
Instead  Gustafson wants to go out on an optimistic note.

Chocolate makes people happy, after all, and she is not ruling out a re-opening someday. 

"This is a loss, it's something special," said customer Sharon Landeck, who left with a dozen custom chocolates boxed with a ribbon on top. "This isn't the first, and it isn't going to be the only one, there are a lot of businesses going downhill since the fires."    

Gustafson departs with a shoutout to the Bay Area: come north, Sonoma County is open, and needs people to shop and dine there 

"If there's one thing I can say that will help another small business like mine keep from going under, come on up!" she exclaimed. 

The self-taught chocolatier is concerned for others even as her business fails. 

She says artisan chocolate is all about blending and balance, a good recipe in life as well.