The Belgian Chocolate Shop in the Beach celebrates 40 years in the community
By ALAN SHACKLETON
The Belgian Chocolate Shop on Queen Street East in the Beach will be celebrating its 40th anniversary this week.
On Thursday, Dec. 12, the shop located at 2455 Queen St. E. will be featuring a special ‘Golden Ticket’ event to mark the special occasion.
The Belgian Chocolate Shop has been a family-run business in the Beach since it first opened its doors at Queen Street East and Elmer Avenue in 1984. The shop was started by Patricia Cohrs and her husband Eric, and when they decided to call it The Belgian Chocolate Shop it was because they were both indeed recent immigrants to Canada from Belgium and had a long association with that country’s famous chocolate making tradition.
“I’m as Belgian as it gets. I’m the real thing,” said Patricia during an interview with Beach Metro Community News at the shop on a snowy Saturday last week. “We are the original and true Belgian chocolates here in the Beach.”
Everything at the shop is hand-made and crafted by a “real” Belgian, she said.
During some the past holiday rushes, Patricia’s sisters would even fly over from Belgium to help with the making of the chocolates and Eric’s brothers also lent a hand.
She and her husband were both born in Brussels, and had known each other as young children and all through their school years. In 1982, Patricia came to Canada and Eric joined her shortly afterwards.
Patricia lived and worked in Vancouver when she first came to Canada, but by December of 1984 she and Eric were ready to open The Belgian Chocolate Shop in the Beach.
She said that after Eric arrived they had thought they might move to Quebec to open a shop there, but that was before they had been to the Beach.
“We were thinking Quebec, but when we came to the Beach we knew this would be home,” said Patricia.
For the first five years, they shop was at Queen and Elmer but they moved further east in 1989 after their rent was increased to an unsustainable level.
For the past 35 years, The Belgian Chocolate Shop has been on the south side of Queen Street East between Munro Park and Silver Birch avenues.
“We were afraid we would lose a lot of customers when we made the move, but it was only affordable at that far east end of Queen, and people followed us here and were able to find us,” said Patricia.
She mentioned the recent closure of Beach Fish House further west along Queen Street East that closed just last month after the owners said they had been presented with a large rent increase, and said that the issue of high rents in the Beach has been a challenge for local business owners that has been going on for decades as evidenced by her own experience.
“People get sad when businesses close, especially if its with people they’ve gotten to know. Lately there have been a lot of closures. The thing is with the rents, it’s not a new phenomenon around here,” said Patricia.
When the shop first opened near Munro Park Avenue, some of the other local business owners the family got to know included Fitzgerald’s, Cirrone’s grocery store and Antoinette’s restaurant. Patricia said Antoinette’s was next door and very popular with her family and those working at the chocolate shop.
She and her husband bought the building where The Belgian Chocolate Shop is located and lived above the store with their children Sylvie and Mathieu who grew up in the neighbourhood and attended local schools. Patricia and Eric later bought a house in the neighbourhood, but family members still live above the shop and share in businesses’ ownership.
Eric died in 2007, which was a hard time for the family, but they have continued to run the shop, said Patricia. That year and dealing with COVID-19 were the two biggest challenges the business faced, she said.
Along with the loyalty and support of the community, and customers who come specially from outside the community, Patricia said the staff at The Belgian Chocolate Shop have helped make the shop a Beach institution. Leonie has been with the shop for 25 years and Karen for six, and they helped build solid relationships with customers.
To celebrate the shop’s 40 years, the Golden Ticket event will start on Dec. 12 and continue for the next 12 days of Christmas. The first 100 customers each of those days will receive a chocolate coin with purchases of $12 or more, and each day one of those coins will also contain a Golden Ticket. The ticket will be able to be redeemed for a “surprise gift” of chocolates.
For more information on The Belgian Chocolate Shop, please call 416-691-1424 or go to https://belgianchocolate.info/
