MAD about Chocolate, a local chocolate cafe that served desserts and lunch, is undergoing a self-described “MADamorphosis.”
The company announced Saturday it will close its doors through Oct. 21 to transform from a chocolate café into a gallery of art, cookies, gourmet chocolate and food-related crafts. The transformation means, among other things, the layered cakes co-owner Marcel Desaulniers is famous for will no longer be available.
Desaulniers is known for making over-the-top desserts like the Death by Chocolate — a six-layer cake that contains over a half-pound of butter, almost four cups of sugar and nearly four pounds of chocolate. Desaulniers created the cake while he was an owner and chef at The Trellis Restaurant in Williamsburg. When he opened MAD about Chocolate with his wife, Connie, they offered a similar cake called the MAD cake.
Connie Desaulniers said when MAD reopens, it will no longer be offering large layered cakes. Instead, Connie said, it will offer cookies “fresh out of the oven every minute of the day,” gourmet chocolate, and a place for her to show and sell her paintings.
“We’re changing things around and focusing on the more popular stuff, simplifying the menu,” Connie Desaulniers said.
After it reopens, guests walking through the doors of MAD will be greeted with the fresh smell of cookies and Connie’s art studio. While MAD will only feature paintings by Connie Desaulniers, it will also be a place for some food-related crafts from around the country, like blown-glass martini and wine glasses from Tennessee.
“It actually has been a much better art venue than we ever imagined,” Connie Desaulniers said.
Desaulniers said she and her husband watched the business take off in a direction that was becoming overwhelming. They never meant to be a full-service café, she said, but because of the enthusiasm of customers they rolled with it.
“It simply became too much for us to handle,” Desaulniers said. “We always like to joke that we’re not a ‘mom-and-pop shop,’ we’re a ‘grandma-and-grandpa shop.’ We’re looking forward to a slightly easier lifestyle.”
MAD about Chocolate opened in April 2012 and, according to the company’s recent announcement, Internet sales and wholesale marketing were part of their business plan. Desaulniers said they plan to revamp that part of the strategy in MAD’s Oct. 22 reopening.
