A new chocolate shop will be opening at the former Early Bird and Leelanau Coffee Roasters bistro on the corner of Main Street and River Street in Leland.
Great Lake Chocolate & Dessert Co. owners Shana and David Sicotte expect to open their second storefront come June. Their current location in Traverse City is at 819 S. Garfield Ave., which opened three years ago this August.
“We’ve been looking around for another spot and it went well for us. So we just want to keep going and I actually came across a post on Facebook from the owners of the building just putting feelers out and we decided to reach out and that’s just kind of history,” Shana said.
Great Lakes Chocolate & Cafe will be opening amidst the construction happening to the Bluebird in June. They officially got the keys at the end of April. Great Lake Chocolate & Cafe will offer an array of desserts, including cheesecake, tortes, and tiramisu. They will add new products at the Leland location featuring breakfast and panini sandwiches, house waffles, salads, and last but not least, beach bowls or otherwise known as acai bowls. The cafe will have a “fast-casual” concept with all items prepared for to-go, however, tables will be available for a small dine-in Shana and David have grown their company for five years and bring to the table backgrounds in culinary arts, baking, and pastry. They started from humble beginnings only selling wholesale before opening the storefront in Traverse City. Both are classicallytrained Culinary Institute of America Alumni in New York City where they met. Shana recalls visiting with a girlfriend to David’s apartment in 2004 during the classic Red Sox and Yankees World Series.
“It was a fun conversation, and he swept me off my feet,” Shana said.
Both David and Shana are Fine Chocolate Industry Association members. The chocolate company prides itself on gathering cacao beans from Central and South American farmers and making chocolate from scratch.
“We don’t just make chocolate bars. We actually make our chocolate and put it in our desserts and our baked goods. Truffles and Bonbons is actually how we started our business,” Shana said. “We started in the basement of our home just doing truffles and bonbons and then it grew from there.”
Dave and Shana have aspired to be “bean-to-bar” craft chocolate innovators and educators.
“We’ve been looking for a while for more space. We are not ones to sit still very long,” David said. “We’re blowing out of the seams there. People have been wanting us to open something on the west side of town.”
There’s a lot of remodeling that needs to happen to the former Early Bird as they want to make it modern, replacing the floor and booths of the former diner.
“We’re going to give it a nice face-lift,” David said.
Shana and David will be hoping to stay open year-round as a place to grab coffee and a sandwich in Leland.
“We’re just hoping to kill it in the summertime. Be able to offer our stuff and promote,” David said. “We try to use as many local ingredients as possible. Obviously cacao doesn’t grow locally ... But a lot of the fruit that we use is local, the honey that we use is local, even down to the lavender.”
Great Lakes Chocolate & Cafe vision is to be part of a broader movement and pivot with what is happening in the craft chocolate world, according to a press release.
“We’re committed to the craft of chocolate-making and sharing our knowledge with the local community,” David and Shana said.
Great Lake Chocolate & Dessert Co. won a Good Food Foundation national award for their 70% dark chocolate Belize bar at the end of April in Portland, Oregon. The only chocolate company in Michigan to receive an award.
“We got to put on our packaging that we won this award and it was really cool,” Shana said.
For more information about the company, or to place your order online, visit www.greatlakeschocolate. co.
