BonBonBon: A Bite-Size Shop with a Big Heart
Having grown up with the belief that she was going to work at an ice cream parlor, Alexandra Clark’s first taste of “real” chocolate was a revelation. She realized right then and there that she was going to have to change her plans.
“It was straight-up emotional,” Clark says. “I had this complete emotional breakdown outside of a chocolate shop in the Netherlands, hanging on to a Kenyan man’s elbow sobbing, ‘It’s not ice cream, it’s chocolate.’”
From that moment on, chocolate became her obsession. Today, Clark is sharing her love of cacao through her successful boutique shop BonBonBon. The Hamtramck store began as an experiment in the back room of a former Coney Island diner, starting out with just one day open per week.
“It was the worst retail store ever,” Clark says. “It was facing the wrong way on a one-way street, and you couldn’t turn back even if you saw it, but it was home. It was mine.”
Her morsels proved so popular with neighbors, friends and family that they had to hang a sign on the door that told people they weren’t open, but to “knock again if you have champagne.”
“We ended up with the whole bottom part of our refrigerator full of champagne bottles,” says Clark. “What happened is we accidently kind of created the most cool, trendy, hip, exclusive chocolate shop the world has ever known.”
Her friends persuaded her to take the next steps and, despite the overwhelming demand, Clark is proud of the way her business has grown out of a tightly knit community. Whenever she can, she connects with local suppliers and loves that BonBonBon now provides employment for 35 people.
But not everyone believed in her dream. Before she launched, one of her mentors suggested there wasn’t a market for artisan chocolate in Detroit. Fortunately for the city, Clark is proving him wrong.
Now she and her team create bonbons with flavor explosions that are only matched by their sassy names, such as the preserved lemon ganache and black currant confiture that go into bonbon #95 (The Bitter Bitch). Fun floppy disk, cassette tape and record-shaped molds make for cheeky fare for nostalgic customers and the business has proven so popular that a second location has opened in downtown Detroit.
Clark’s favorite bonbon at the moment is called “Bubs,” a play on a classic champagne truffle that involves sparkling wine from Northern Michigan and champagne ganache.
“We’ve engineered it in a way that, as you’re getting to your final bites of it, it actually starts to fizz in your mouth.”
It’s not all fun and games, though. Clark’s shop is, first and foremost, an ethical operation. She has conducted a lot of research into the way her industry has developed, and has been appalled at some of the practices, including child labor, that are widespread in the chocolate world.
“Even though it’s not a big shop, not a huge operation, it is cool to be inspiring alternative supply chains that are really and truly and sincerely ethical.”
Hamtramck: 11360 Joseph Campau Ave. 313-236-5581
Downtown Detroit: 719 Griswold St., Ste. 100; 313-316-1430; BonBonBon.com
