Henrico Small Business Spotlight: Gearharts Fine Chocolates

Gearharts Fine Chocolates is full of surprises — and Tim Gearhart wants to keep it that way.

Crafted with the precision of a Marine and the inspiration of a world traveler, Gearthart’s concoctions give locals the chance to celebrate the versatility of chocolate in the most delectable ways.

Gearhart – a longtime chocolate lover – will be the first to tell you he “never set out to be a chocolatier.” But America’s changing taste for the cocoa confection in the late 1990s and early 2000s created an opportunity for him to create something new and needed.

“I think we were really lucky,” Gearhart, 56, said. “I always kind of liken it to the craft beer movement of the '90s and the wine industry of the '80s, coffee in the '90s, where people had been around a lot of mass-produced a lot of their lives and then suddenly realized there's local alternatives and people doing interesting things with drink and food.

“I think chocolate was kind of next in line for a bit of a rebirth, and so it's been really great we kind of caught that wave at a really great time.”

The vision for Gearharts Fine Chocolates was simple but bold: a European-style chocolate shop offering unique and exotic flavors.

“My goal is to create an artisan chocolate experience where people can really notice that we're different,” Gearhart said. “We're using great quality ingredients and matching that with some old techniques and some interesting new flavors.”

When Gearhart and his business partner, Bill Hamilton, opened the original Charlottesville location in late 2001, Gearhart was crafting just a few hundred pieces of chocolate a day.

“It’s literally a business that started with a bowl and two forks and me hand-dipping all the chocolates,” Gearhart said. “Now we have about 20 to 25 employees and we’re making upwards of 12,000 to 15,000 pieces a day, sometimes. So, it's a very changed business.”

Today, Gearhart has two locations — one in Short Pump Station in Henrico and another in downtown Charlottesville — and his menu is vast.

He sells a variety of products online – truffles, chocolate bars, chocolate barks and caramels, to name a few. But visiting either of the shops in person gives you the chance to buy those products as well as experience their Euro-inspired dessert cafes with expanded offerings. Those additional in-store items include specialty coffees, house-baked chocolate pastries, hot chocolate and hand-dipped seasonal fruit.

“I'm a pastry chef by trade, a lot of my employees are pastry people as well, and it just made perfect sense to do a chocolate-centric bakery or a cafe,” Gearhart said. “So we have the most decadent, luxurious chocolate desserts.”

Most of the chocolates are made in Charlottesville, but locals who visit the Henrico shop will quickly realize there’s plenty of goodies made in-house.

“You walk in, and you smell baked goods,” Gearhart said. “We have an on-staff pastry chef, and she's doing the cookies and the brownies and the croissants and the pain au chocolats.”

The store is sleek with “a little bit of a European edge to it” – envision locally commissioned furniture, beautifully inscribed chalkboards and artfully displayed chocolates. 

All the products match that level of sophistication.

“Inspired by the World. Crafted in Virginia” is the tagline, and it’s evident Gearhart takes it seriously with his signature line of chocolate truffles. Think ancho chili and orange notes for the Maya; candied ginger, cardamom and rose flavors for the Taj; and coconut, rum and macadamia tastes for the Kauai. All 16 signature chocolates have been on the menu since day one – and Gearhart is proud of the recipes he’s chosen as the “backbone of the business.”

“We weren't a product that was designed to sit on the shelf for a long time,” Gearhart said. “We were trying to bring this kind of local flavor and this freshness … And it was important that we kept that the same and really tried to maintain what set us apart all those years ago.”

Part of that commitment to local flavor lies in Gearhart’s use of quality, local products like ciders, wines, whiskeys, maple syrups and fruits.

One ongoing partnership is with Bubba's Sweet Nectar – a Central Virginia-based honey company. Gearhart uses both a wildflower honey and a hot honey in multiple products from the shop, including the Wildflower Honey-Almond Caramels, the Hot Honeycomb candy and various baked goods.

“It's just really great when you can find some partners that have the same thought processes as you in their chosen field,” Gearhart said.

Even though Gearhart is happy with his menu, he’s always looking for new ways to entice customers.

“We're always trying to create,” Gearhart said. “I certainly go through creative seasons where I’ll come up with six different things in like a three-week period. . . You just never know when it's going to strike.”

Gearharts has a wide variety of products in store and online. But if locals are looking for recommendations for their first trip to the Henrico location, Gearhart has a couple suggestions. 

First: the flourless chocolate torte – “a decadent, over-the-top dessert” made right in the shop.

Second? The Torrone Bar – a unique take on an Italian-inspired chocolate bar where honey nougat filled with pistachios, dried cherries and lemon zest sits below a layer of dark chocolate caramel and the whole concoction is sealed with the kiss of 70 percent dark chocolate. Consider it a “fancy candy bar” Gearhart calls his “latest fixation.”

Gearhart’s products are undeniably fun and innovative. Chocolate making, however, is as much a science as it is an art. And looking closely at his creations reveals an intense level of precision – something that comes naturally to Gearhart since the formally trained pastry chef began his culinary journey as a chef in the Marine Corps.

Gearhart openly jokes about being one of very few who actually signed up to be a cook in the Marines – most of his fellow chefs were there out of punishment. Even still, he admits the experience laid the groundwork for chocolatiering. 

“Chocolate is not rocket science, but it is absolutely a very specialized kind of a job and a craft that not everybody could do,” Gearhart said. “These are long hours on your feet producing tens of thousands of chocolates every day that look exactly the same. . . And if you're making 1,000 omelets for Marines, you learn a thing or two about repetition.”

For details, visit the company’s website or follow its Instagram and Facebook pages for updates on latest creations. Gearharts Fine Chocolates is located at 11331 West Broad Street.

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