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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 \u2014 not enough to keep the small business afloat.<\/p>\n
Jerry McClure\/Special Contributor<\/p>\n
News that Dallas\u2019 Kate Weiser Chocolate would close suddenly<\/a> was a surprise to North Texans who turned to the reliable shop for sweets during the holidays.<\/p>\n Founder Kate Weiser\u2019s chocolates were beautiful<\/a>. And delicious. The business seemed to be thriving<\/a>: It expanded over 12 years from its original home in West Dallas\u2019 Trinity Groves to NorthPark Center, Grapevine and Fort Worth.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Even Oprah\u2019s Favorite Things showcased Weiser\u2019s chocolate Carl the Snowman more than once<\/a>, bringing continued national attention to the small Dallas company.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the comments I\u2019ve been getting were like, \u2018Wait, how are you not a millionaire?\u2019\u201d Weiser said, one day after she announced her closure.\u00a0<\/p>\n She laughed. If only they knew.<\/p>\n Make Dallas News a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cTo be quite frank, we haven\u2019t been profitable in four years,\u201d Weiser said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Kate\u00a0Weiser, 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.<\/p>\n Tom Fox\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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\u00a0second half of 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cBut honestly,\u201d Weiser said, \u201cit was too late. We ended up breaking even once again.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The writing was on the wall, she said. \u201cBut to me, it felt like a shock.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of the struggle is Weiser is not the majority owner of the business that bears her name. Trinity Groves\u2019 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.<\/p>\n Trinity Groves doesn\u2019t have an incubator program anymore<\/a>. “It just didn’t work,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n An interior view of Kate Weiser in Dallas’ Trinity Groves shows a big photo of founder Kate\u00a0Weiser, splatter-painted in her signature colors.<\/p>\n Tom Fox\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n In another attempt to save the business,\u00a0Weiser considered taking out a second mortgage to buy the chocolatier outright.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n She wasn\u2019t sure she could afford it. Or, she said, if the shop was \u201csomething that should be saved.\u201d<\/p>\n Ninja Turtle bonbons from Kate\u00a0Weiser Chocolate in Dallas are made of golden caramel, toasted pecans and dark chocolate.<\/p>\n Tom Fox\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n Difficult realities<\/p>\n Kate Weiser Chocolate faced a series of challenges beyond the ownership structure.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The company earns nearly 70% of its annual sales in the six weeks before Christmas. That seasonality can be crippling.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery year, you\u2019re rolling the dice, building all this inventory,\u201d she said. Take Carl the Snowman, the shop\u2019s best-selling item: In 2025, Oprah Winfrey’s list of Favorite Things<\/a> 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n If anyone could save a small business, it\u2019s Oprah. Right?<\/p>\n \u201cEvery opportunity has a cost,\u201d Weiser said. The exposure was great, \u201cbut we over-projected for that and ended up with a lot of extra snowmen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Still, Weiser has already made plans to sell Carl again in late 2026 at Central Market stores.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t want to rob Dallas of Carl,\u201d Weiser said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Carl the Drinking Chocolate Snowman\u00a0is 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.<\/p>\n Vernon Bryant\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n She added a personal sentiment as the inventor of this popular product: \u201cI have a daughter who is 2 \u00bd, and I want to make sure she has some.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n After a burst of interest at Christmastime every year, Valentine\u2019s Day offers another spike, bringing in just over 10% of the year\u2019s sales. It isn\u2019t enough, the founder said. At Easter and Mother\u2019s Day, chocolate sales bring in 4% more sales at each holiday.<\/p>\n But then it\u2019s six long months before the Christmas season returns.<\/p>\n \u201cIt takes such high capital to get to the next holiday season,\u201d Weiser said.<\/p>\n Kate Weiser’s Diamond Heart Collection was a new option for Valentine’s Day in 2019.<\/p>\n Ryan Michalesko\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n Are chocolates still available?<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The website will take orders online until April 15, 2026. Some items are already sold out.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n Weiser\u2019s favorites are salted caramel, passionfruit and hazelnut latte.\u00a0<\/p>\n Passion Fruit (center) is one of Kate\u00a0Weiser’s favorite flavors. Is it gone forever, when the shop closes? “Maybe I\u2019ll do a pop-up. You never know,” she said.<\/p>\n Tom Fox\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n Wistful customers can buy the chocolates and freeze them for up to six months. Here\u2019s how:<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n 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\u2019re 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n Weiser said she\u2019ll help her employees find new jobs, then take a 60-day rest.\u00a0<\/p>\n She wants to open another dessert company someday, she confirmed.<\/p>\n By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use<\/a> and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a ton of ideas. How can a chocolate business be replicated and scaled \u2014 but still delicious?\u201d she pondered. She\u2019s thinking up ideas even as the business takes its final breaths.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the problem,\u201d she said. \u201cMy brain won\u2019t shut off.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n In 2018, Kate\u00a0Weiser created the Dallas skyline out of bonbons.<\/p>\n Rose Baca\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In this August 2014 photo, Kate Weiser reaches for a truffle on her first day of business in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,88934,88643,92708,95041,95042,92205,95040],"class_list":{"0":"post-250726","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-headlines","10":"tag-dallas-news","11":"tag-tp-bakery","12":"tag-tp-fort-worth","13":"tag-tp-frisco","14":"tag-tp-grapevine","15":"tag-tp-north-dallas","16":"tag-tp-small-business","17":"tag-tp-west-dallas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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