White Picket Fence
How did we choose the location for our kitchen?
The short answer is that when I cried out to God, “Where do you want me to go?” (to build our commercial kitchen), He gave me a vision of a white picket fence. No joke.
I’m not one to get visions so I got in my car and drove around Honolulu looking for a commercial property with a white picket fence (and there aren’t many). On a drive in Manoa, I actually found it and that’s where our shop and kitchen is today!
You see, we began learning to make chocolates in our home and started with catering and selling them to family and friends. When I began looking for a space to rent for a commercial kitchen in 2013, everything that looked nice, was way out of my personal budget. Everything I could afford I can vividly remember had either a very crooked floor that made me feel like I was in a shrinking room like that hallway in the movie, “Charlie & the Chocolate Factory.” Or it felt like a prison…dark, dirty, damp, and with no windows to the outside world. And the one I really wanted even though it was super small and would make me feel like I’m in a fish bowl, but was the best so far, I was rejected from. I started to question why would anyone take a chance on me?
Everywhere I went from that point on, I looked at every single room/building that looked vacant. One day I finally cried out to God and asked Him that if this was His plan, to show me where to go. And that’s when I got the vision and the story of the white picket fence.
Fast forward when I arrived at the building, I instantly fell in love with the charming giant Manoa house. Everything inside looked closed, but I walked around the corner and down the building and came across a little women’s clothing boutique called LMS. I nosily peeked in through the window of the closed shop and the owner, Linda , saw me staring in! That sweet lady, welcomed me in even though her shop was closed and we began talking story immediately. She started telling me how the space was a little too big and expensive for her and I instantly had a gut feeling as I walked around and looked at it.
I then took a huge risk and asked this women I just met if she would consider subcontracting the back half of the space to me, since all I needed was to build a commercial kitchen and could help her with her rent. Since it was just her in the shop and would be me in the kitchen, we could also watch out for each other and keep each other company.
She loved the idea!
We talked to our property manager and thankfully he agreed. I also remember telling him, “I’m not leaving until I’m in this building because God gave me a vision of a white picket fence” and this is it. He thought I was crazy. He still thinks I am! ;p
In my first year, sweet Linda, who had so much experience in retail, was kind enough to let me put a mini beverage refrigerator in her cute shop and test out selling my chocolates in her shop so I could see if people liked what I had to offer. I decorated the top of the refrigerator that sat on the ground in a corner with a little table cloth and menu and pictures and put mainly 9pc and 20pc truffle boxes inside. The chocolates were wrapped in Kraft boxes and decorated with paper I glued on top from Ben Franklin and tied with a ribbon. I also had plates of dark chocolate covered Oreos. There wasn’t much that could fit in that little refrigerator, but it was about all I could make in one day.
And they would sell! Linda would bang on the wall between us and yell, Erin, I sold more of your chocolates. We’re all out of Oreos. And I’d yell back, “tell them to come back in 5 hours or tomorrow” and would feverishly get back to making chocolates again.
It went like this for a while and I’d hang out in Linda’s shop for a break, try on her clothes, model for her social media, and she’d give me feedback about what people were saying about the chocolates.
I was enjoying this part time little side hustle along with my full time job until suddenly, everything changed big time! Linda decided to retire and close her shop which meant for me, I either had to 1. Stop my chocolate making in the back, 2. Move out and find another space, or 3. Take her front space of her lease too and open a full on shop for the chocolates and get into the retail business.
I thought the last ideas was the craziest and I wasn’t ready for it. At the time I heard the news, I was actually on a mission trip with my church in Japan and just felt called to spend more time with the Japanese people and questioned maybe becoming a missionary. Instead, God clearly told me to “Go back home and open a shop.”
I was surprised by this. I thought for sure, this was way too much for me, which was true, but it wasn’t too much for God. This is really when I had to take a leap of faith into the unknown and go all in. I felt called to leave my full time job I absolutely loved, the work I had built over the past 7 years, leave my steady and great income, and give it all up for no income, plus put in all of my savings accumulated over the years, just to cover the cost to open a shop and hire my first employees.
But I couldn’t deny it. After crying about it for 3 months and asking God, “Are you sure?” I knew deep in my heart, He was right. There was a gentle whisper, a peace about it all. He was sure and I was the one doubting and not trusting. And so, in September 2014, I said goodbye and hello to the next chapter and we opened this retail shop.
Only God would have known how perfectly that would have worked out for my small business to be adjacent to where we established our commercial kitchen. Looking back at my other options, I was limiting myself by what I could afford, and not allowing for what God could do.
Everyone in business told me the this spot in Manoa was a horrible area to open because there was no foot traffic, no one came all the way into Manoa, and no one would be able to find us. In a sense, they were right. And this is a challenge for us to this day for sure. But at the same time, we became a quaint destination, a chocolate home where our team felt safe and our customers felt welcomed with the greatest sincerity and care into our humble kitchen where everything was made fresh.
What confirmed for me that this was what God wanted me to do, was as soon as we opened, the Japanese flocked to our shop. We had not paid a cent to advertising to the Japanese people, yet they came showing us $10,000 valued ads that mysteriously told them that we were “the best in Hawai`i” and they searched for us by taxi, bus, and even walked from Waikiki!
As I was practicing my Japanese in the shop and welcoming them (and all of the locals and other visitors), I realized in that moment that God brought the mission field to my shop.
He brought the people to me (through chocolates) to be able to share His love and His story.
And that’s how I hope it continues to feel today.
Over the past 8 years, the Manoa rain, wind, and termites slowly deteriorated our our beloved white wooden picket fence. Everything began falling apart and despite all of our efforts to help save the fence that I fell in love with, I had to part with it and know in my heart, that it’s not about the fence. It’s about the obedience. The leap of the faith. And the story could continue to be shared and a new chapter could be written about the new white picket fence.
(But I did keep a piece of the old fence for memory sake! :p)
And so in the summer of 2022, we finally said goodbye to the old wooden white picket fence, and rebuilt the foundation making it safer, secure, and ready to stand the next 8+ years. In a way, the new front is also a vision come true that we had hoped someday, we could make the space safer for our chocolate friends.
There’s a new white fence up and though it looks different, it still serves as a reminder of how we got here and the blessings that have followed. This is the story of how we came to Manoa and how God led us to a white picket fence, this retail business of Choco le`a, and to all of you.
erin’s experience tip:
God’s plans truly are greater than our own. It takes crazy faith to trust Him at times, but He always rewards our obedience when we follow with our whole heart. Do not be afraid. Trust in Him and faith forward.