FAQs

We'd love to see you in our store in Echo Park. We're located at 1605 Grafton Street on the corner of Echo Park Avenue and are open daily from 8am-7pm (and until 8pm on Fridays & Saturdays). You can also give us a call at 323-372-9865, email us at info@chocolatedispensary.com, or fill out this form and one of us will get back to you. We'd also love to see you on Instagram!

No, we do not make anything. We curate one of the largest collections of craft chocolate in the United States with a retail store in Los Angeles and an online store that ships nationwide.

Yup! We're located at 1605 Grafton Street, Unit 102A in Echo Park, Los Angeles. We're open daily from 8am-7pm (and until 8pm on Fridays & Saturdays). We also have a café serving hot and cold chocolate and coffee drinks, pastries, gelato, and more!

I'm sorry. We don’t understand the question.

So it is written.

No. We dispense chocolate. That’s why we call it... oh, never mind...

Eat it!

Then email us at info@chocolatedispensary.com, and we'll make it right.

While we cannot accept returns on food items, if you have an issue, please send us an email, and we'll do our best to make the situation right.

Click here!

OMG – yes! That’s one of our favorite things to do. Either email us at info@chocolatedispensary.com or give us a call at ‭323-372-9865‬ or use our Contact Us form. You can also click here to see some of our best selling products.

Ah, yes, the age-old question. Craft chocolate is sometimes known as “small batch” and “bean-to-bar.” What it really means is that the chocolate is made with extremely high-quality ingredients, sustainable and ethical products and processes, and is usually made in small quantities. Think of it as the opposite of mass-produced chocolate like Hershey’s or Mars. Craft chocolate is a fast-growing market, and we’re so happy to be a part of exploring this beautiful art with you. 

Oh, yeah. Not only is it unspeakably delicious, it's also good for you and the world. You care about what you put in your body and when chocolate that's made with simple, quality ingredients goes down the hatch, your body is going to pull you aside and say, "thank you!" Craft chocolate makers also care about the environment and the livelihood of the people who make it, and who grow the cacao beans, which feels pretty great, too. The makers we sell often pay way above fair trade pricing for the cacao, and travel to the countries of origin to meet in person with the farmers. We like that eating great craft chocolate can be a small way of making the world a better place.

Dark chocolate can last up to about 2 years unopened but we recommend consuming it within 18 months. Milk chocolate has a slightly shorter shelf life – around 18 months – and white chocolate should be consumed within a year. Shelf life can be extended in the fridge and freezer but moisture is killer for chocolate so we recommend storing it at room temperature, under 70 degrees Fahrenheit, if possible.

We start by getting to know the makers. We have spoken face-to-face with almost every chocolate maker in our collection, and this is a practice we'd like to continue. We want to make sure, not only that we love their chocolate and how they source and make it, but that they love what we’re doing, too. We only work with producers who use fair trade cacao or better, and ethical and sustainable ingredients and practices in both their sourcing and production techniques. We highlight small, BIPOC, women-owned, and family-owned companies, whose products are often hard to find on retail shelves and in online collections.

After that, you guessed it: we taste the chocolate. We are looking for great taste and textures, interesting and inventive flavors, a great story, and a wide variety of chocolates from around the world that allows us to really taste the essence of the source cacao. We will highlight different makers, flavors and themes throughout the year to ensure you have the chance to taste as much chocolate as possible.

We currently carry about 850 chocolates from 100 or so small makers from all around the world.

If you have a favorite craft chocolate that we don’t carry, let us know by emailing info@chocolatedispensary.com.

This is a great question! A chocolate maker gets the cocoa beans from a farmer (already fermented and dried), then roasts, winnows, conches, and tempers the chocolate before molding it into the chocolate you want to stuff in your mouth, usually in the form of bars.

A chocolatier takes already made chocolate (called "couverture") and melts that down to create their own creations, like truffles, bonbons, chocolate-covered nuts, barks, and more.

As you can imagine, this topic comes up a lot, mostly because folks have read this article from Consumer Reports written in 2023.

A lot of marketing has created a very "doom and gloom" vision of chocolate, basically implying (without outright saying it) that there is so much lead in dark chocolate that you might as well check into hospice right now and wait it out cuz the end is coming. No one is wrong to help inform customers of the potential risks of cadmium and other heavy metals but the hype around it is blown way out of proportion in many instances. Dark chocolate often does contain metals, mostly cadmium, (it is more present in darker chocolate because of the higher percentage of cacao) but shellfish, kale, lettuce, legumes, mushrooms, root crops and other foods have especially high levels of cadmium also.

You might find this explanation by Greg D'Alesandre of Dandelion Chocolate especially illuminating, There is a lot to be learned here - and unlearned - and we hope you'll take the time to take a listen.

Many of the chocolates we carry are vegan, gluten, nut, dairy, and soy-free. However, we do sell products that contain nuts, dairy, and other inclusions.

Many chocolate makers work in facilities where these ingredients may be present. Kindly refer to makers' ingredients lists and packaging for complete dietary information.

Please use all due diligence when choosing which chocolates you buy, share, and consume

Yes! We reuse all the packaging we possibly can (which is why you may see remnants of other stickers on your packages when they arrive. When using new materials, we do our best to source the most sustainable, recyclable, and reuseable materials to box, label, package and ship your chocolate to you.

Tattoos are cool, but avoiding inks on our labels and inserts that are bad for the environment is cooler. By this logic we're cooler than tattoos.