Halloween chocolate fails to stand out in shop requests

Nico Sato starts working croissant dough at Sparrow & Crumb at 4 a.m. Sato, a co-owner and baker, could not recall hearing a customer ask for Halloween chocolate this year.

Which chocolates did customers ask for at local shops this Halloween? None of the six sellers Bonzai spoke with could name one. Three also did not remember hearing such requests in previous years. Their accounts describe what reached them, not every order placed at their shops.

Eli Rosenfeld, a baker at Alder & Oat, remembered no request for a particular Halloween chocolate. Mara Velez, head baker at Larkspur Oven, heard none. Priya Desai, owner of Ember & Bean, did not track the requests and could not recall a particular customer asking. June Okonkwo, a wine shop clerk at Vine & Cellar, remembered no one asking her; Walt Brennan, co-founder and brewer at Kettle Yard Brewing, heard no requests at the brewery.

The counter was not where every seller spent the day. Rosenfeld usually works on morning pastry rather than taking orders, and Velez mostly runs the morning bake from the kitchen. Sato often works in the back. Desai put the limit plainly: “I’d rather not guess and put words in someone’s mouth.”

Of the three who spoke about earlier Halloweens, Sato, Okonkwo and Brennan did not remember chocolate requests then, either. Okonkwo said customers mostly ask her about wine under $20; at the brewery, Brennan heard requests for the 3.5% table beer this year. “People come in asking what’s on tap, not what’s in the candy bowl,” Brennan said.

Across the six sellers, no one could name a Halloween chocolate customers asked for this year, and the three with recollections of previous years remembered no requests then, either. Back at Sparrow & Crumb, the morning customers Sato encounters mostly want coffee and one pastry.