Good and Bad, Thankful For All Of It
Yesterday came and went like most Mondays do, but it hit me that it was the seven year anniversary of opening the shop in the Village.
I felt the usual mix of emotions: sadness with gladness.
I’m happy that I have been able to get Queer Chocolatier going again this year as a home-based vendor, even with the limitations that come with it because it also provides opportunities including several new customers and lots of new places to vend.
When I started my business in 2017, home-based vendors were much more challenging to operate as and if it had been an option for me eight years ago, I would have jumped right on it as the entry to getting started.
The pandemic led to a bit of loosening of those regulations and now there is greater allowance of what can be made and sold out of the home and ways in which those items are sold; online sales were previously not permitted at all as a home-based vendor and now they are, albeit only within the state of Indiana. Although, I am still unable to wholesale or distribute as a home-based vendor working out of a kitchen that is not commercially certified.
Those restrictions—unable to ship retail out of Indiana, unable to wholesale to another business, and unable to distribute for further retail—really put a ceiling on how much I can scale my business.
I’d love to scale Queer Chocolatier as I have the machines, know-how, excellent suppliers, and customer base (thank you!).
I just don’t have access to a commercial kitchen at this time, but also, it’s maybe for the best that I didn’t have a space this year since I’ve been juggling a day job along with a long, painful recovery from surgery back in May.
Being a home-based vendor is giving me the chance to balance it all out as best as I can without burning out (too badly) and, frankly, is a good fiscal move as my overhead is minimal. I’m also able to roll right out of bed and take something close to 30 shuffling steps to the kitchen and start rolling truffles or tempering bars or measuring out ingredients to add to the melanger.
I have found things to be thankful for, even if it isn’t perfect and is sometimes bad but is overall much better than it was last year.
I do miss having a shop. And being reminded of having had one on the anniversary of its opening made me miss it more.
Honestly, I dream about having a place on occasion.
And before when I would wish for it, it was out of a guilt of social obligation, a desire to have a space to hold for my community again and when I couldn’t make it happen the way I’d envisioned, that desire became an even sharper pang of guilt.
But now, the desire to have a space is so that I can grow the business to a new scope and scale which will allow me to hire and train employees to learn a specialized craft and manufacture. I desire to build a stronger business foundation so that there is enough strength developed to support the community and make a bigger, sustainable, and enduring impact.
This year of being a home-based vendor has been a year of tending to the soil and getting the seeds ready to plant. Next year will be about nurturing those seeds and seeing how well they germinate and grow.
Perhaps by this time next year, there will be a new QC harvest for which I can be thankful for then as I am thankful for where I find myself now.