In this August 2014 photo, Kate Weiser reaches for a truffle on her first day of business in Dallas’ Trinity Groves. The chocolatier will close in 2026, following four years of break-even sales — not enough to keep the small business afloat.
Jerry McClure/Special Contributor
News that Dallas’ Kate Weiser Chocolate would close suddenly was a surprise to North Texans who turned to the reliable shop for sweets during the holidays.
Founder Kate Weiser’s chocolates were beautiful. And delicious. The business seemed to be thriving: It expanded over 12 years from its original home in West Dallas’ Trinity Groves to NorthPark Center, Grapevine and Fort Worth.
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Even Oprah’s Favorite Things showcased Weiser’s chocolate Carl the Snowman more than once, bringing continued national attention to the small Dallas company.
“All the comments I’ve been getting were like, ‘Wait, how are you not a millionaire?’” Weiser said, one day after she announced her closure.
She laughed. If only they knew.
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“To be quite frank, we haven’t been profitable in four years,” Weiser said.
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Kate Weiser, of Kate Weiser Chocolate in Dallas, started making chocolate deliveries herself in 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It saved the company money.
Tom Fox/Staff Photographer
She kept her struggle mostly quiet, thinking her beautiful bonbons would eventually lead to a breakthrough year. The company relied on a large line of credit that her partners renewed annually, she said.
Weiser, a naturally creative person, let go of her artistic ambitions and buried her head in spreadsheets. In 2025, she hired a consultant to help her increase sales and cut costs. It seemed to be working: Sales went up 35% in the second half of 2025.
“But honestly,” Weiser said, “it was too late. We ended up breaking even once again.”
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The writing was on the wall, she said. “But to me, it felt like a shock.”
Part of the struggle is Weiser is not the majority owner of the business that bears her name. Trinity Groves’ investors own 60% of Kate Weiser Chocolate. More than a decade ago, the developers behind the West Dallas neighborhood tested a rare incubator model that offered impressive, yet inexperienced chefs a storefront in exchange for a majority share in their companies.
Trinity Groves doesn’t have an incubator program anymore. “It just didn’t work,” Trinity Groves co-founder Phil Romano told The News in 2020. Kate Weiser Chocolate was an outlier, as it lasted 12 years while most of the incubator restaurants around it closed after a year or two.
An interior view of Kate Weiser in Dallas’ Trinity Groves shows a big photo of founder Kate Weiser, splatter-painted in her signature colors.
Tom Fox/Staff Photographer
In another attempt to save the business, Weiser considered taking out a second mortgage to buy the chocolatier outright.
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She wasn’t sure she could afford it. Or, she said, if the shop was “something that should be saved.”
Ninja Turtle bonbons from Kate Weiser Chocolate in Dallas are made of golden caramel, toasted pecans and dark chocolate.
Tom Fox/Staff Photographer
Difficult realities
Kate Weiser Chocolate faced a series of challenges beyond the ownership structure.
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The company earns nearly 70% of its annual sales in the six weeks before Christmas. That seasonality can be crippling.
“Every year, you’re rolling the dice, building all this inventory,” she said. Take Carl the Snowman, the shop’s best-selling item: In 2025, Oprah Winfrey’s list of Favorite Things said a $28 four-pack of edible snowmen was one of the best food items of the Christmas season. It was sold in Dallas-Fort Worth stores, on Amazon and in Central Market.
If anyone could save a small business, it’s Oprah. Right?
“Every opportunity has a cost,” Weiser said. The exposure was great, “but we over-projected for that and ended up with a lot of extra snowmen.”
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Still, Weiser has already made plans to sell Carl again in late 2026 at Central Market stores.
“I didn’t want to rob Dallas of Carl,” Weiser said.
Carl the Drinking Chocolate Snowman is a hollow shell of chocolate filled with hot cocoa mix and marshmallows. Customers heat up milk and dunk Carl in. When he melts, the hot cocoa is ready.
Vernon Bryant/Staff Photographer
She added a personal sentiment as the inventor of this popular product: “I have a daughter who is 2 ½, and I want to make sure she has some.”
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After a burst of interest at Christmastime every year, Valentine’s Day offers another spike, bringing in just over 10% of the year’s sales. It isn’t enough, the founder said. At Easter and Mother’s Day, chocolate sales bring in 4% more sales at each holiday.
But then it’s six long months before the Christmas season returns.
“It takes such high capital to get to the next holiday season,” Weiser said.
Kate Weiser’s Diamond Heart Collection was a new option for Valentine’s Day in 2019.
Ryan Michalesko/Staff Photographer
Are chocolates still available?
Kate Weiser Chocolate shops in Grapevine and Fort Worth will close April 17, 2026. Any leftover chocolate will be moved to Trinity Groves and NorthPark Center. Those two Dallas stores “will remain open until our last chocolate is sold,” Weiser wrote on Instagram.
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The website will take orders online until April 15, 2026. Some items are already sold out.
The most popular flavor is Cookie Monster, a vanilla bean white chocolate ganache bonbon layered with cookie butter crunchy praline. The shop makes five times more Cookie Monster truffles than any other flavor.
Weiser’s favorites are salted caramel, passionfruit and hazelnut latte.
Passion Fruit (center) is one of Kate Weiser’s favorite flavors. Is it gone forever, when the shop closes? “Maybe I’ll do a pop-up. You never know,” she said.
Tom Fox/Staff Photographer
Wistful customers can buy the chocolates and freeze them for up to six months. Here’s how:
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Put the chocolates inside a zip-close freezer bag, then do it again. Refrigerate the two sealed bags for 24 hours, then move them to the freezer. When you’re ready to eat them, move the bags from the freezer back to the refrigerator for 24 hours. Then, set them out at room temperature for 24 hours. You can then unseal the zipped bags and enjoy.
Weiser said she’ll help her employees find new jobs, then take a 60-day rest.
She wants to open another dessert company someday, she confirmed.
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“I have a ton of ideas. How can a chocolate business be replicated and scaled — but still delicious?” she pondered. She’s thinking up ideas even as the business takes its final breaths.
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“That’s the problem,” she said. “My brain won’t shut off.”
Kate Weiser Chocolate has shops at 3011 Gulden Lane (in Trinity Groves) and 8687 N. Central Expressway (inside NorthPark Center), both in Dallas. Stores will remain open until chocolate is sold. Shops at 5182 Marathon Ave., Fort Worth, and 417 S. Main St., Grapevine, will close April 17, 2026.
In 2018, Kate Weiser created the Dallas skyline out of bonbons.
Rose Baca/Staff Photographer