Chocolate Girl out of business?

kosherdave wrote: I think I have seriously been past it twice when it was actually open and I live like 2 blocks away, walk by EVERY DAY on my commute!

There are a couple stores like that around me. On the rare occasion that I am off and home on a work day, I'm always like, whoa! Where did _that_ place come from? Only to realize that it has been there for a long time, I've just never seen it open before.

Wait, Coco bar is gone? I love that place!

Cocoa Bar was open the other day when I walked past.

The jewelry store on 7th ave is closed on Saturday's. I was in Choc. Girl once, nothing that special and it was rather expensive. Don't see how anyone can pay these high rents selling choc. not to mention the other expenses they have.

I'm wondering how long the paper/card store on 4th st. lasts. Never see a lot of people in there.

[quote="lnelson"]i just googled "chocolate girl

They can't do that-they can't hire someone to work in their store on the sabbath. They would still be conducting business, whether it was their personal body there or not, business would still be being conducted in their name and that is a no-no.

i used to work for a rather large orthodox run company here in Brooklyn, and everybody had to be out of the office by a certain time on Friday nights, etc.. they also shut the entire place down for Jewish holidays.

And, there are other businesses in the area that close on Fridays early and on Saturdays and they still stay in business.

Odd. I work for Orthodox people and, although they leave early on Fridays I am still here and frequently work on Saturday's.

"LongTimeSloper" wrote: [quote=lnelson]i just googled "chocolate girl

They can't do that-they can't hire someone to work in their store on the sabbath. They would still be conducting business, whether it was their personal body there or not, business would still be being conducted in their name and that is a no-no.

i used to work for a rather large orthodox run company here in Brooklyn, and everybody had to be out of the office by a certain time on Friday nights, etc.. they also shut the entire place down for Jewish holidays.

And, there are other businesses in the area that close on Fridays early and on Saturdays and they still stay in business.

Odd. I work for Orthodox people and, although they leave early on Fridays I am still here and frequently work on Saturday's.

Hmm, that's odd. they always made a big production out of telling people when the sun would be down and what time they had to be out of there by. The assistant to one of the owners used to stay later on Fridays and I remember the boss always telling him what time he had to be out by. And, the one time they needed people to work extra on the weekends, they had people come in on Sundays, not Saturdays.

Are they Orthodox or just observant Jews? Do the women you work with wear sheitels, do the men have a minyan prayer at certain hours of the day, etc?

What is Chocolate Girl?

Isn't Marshall's that upstate/Long Island retail chain that sells overstock of designer office clothes to grandmas?

daver wrote: [quote=kosherdave]I think I have seriously been past it twice when it was actually open and I live like 2 blocks away, walk by EVERY DAY on my commute!

There are a couple stores like that around me. On the rare occasion that I am off and home on a work day, I'm always like, whoa! Where did _that_ place come from? Only to realize that it has been there for a long time, I've just never seen it open before.

Kinda like Slope Jeans off the corner of Garfield & 7th. They're closed on Saturday during the biggest shopping day of the week around there. During the week, nobody is in there buying expensive jeans....

eggcream wrote: Cocoa Bar was open the other day when I walked past.

The jewelry store on 7th ave is closed on Saturday's. I was in Choc. Girl once, nothing that special and it was rather expensive. Don't see how anyone can pay these high rents selling choc. not to mention the other expenses they have.

I'm wondering how long the paper/card store on 4th st. lasts. Never see a lot of people in there.

Re Cocoa Bar on 7th Avenue - they are now re-opened under new ownership (I just spoke with the guy - seems very nice - tells me their garden in back is full of flowers). Evidently it was closed for a short while. NY Mag's restaurant listings site still lists it as closed. Also, this guy has a second location in Manhattan at 21 Clinton Street (between Houston and Stanton).

LongTimeSloper wrote:
Are they Orthodox or just observant Jews? Do the women you work with wear sheitels, do the men have a minyan prayer at certain hours of the day, etc?

Observant, I guess. There is a bagel shop around the corner from my Mother's on the LES that hires non Jewish people to work on Saturday's too...

That must be the difference-observant versus Orthodox.

I only went to Chocolate Girl once... the place looked like it was just a temporary installation in a raw space. Maybe they were still finishing up the shop. We bought some chocolate and chocolate covered oreos. Incredibly expensive for mediocre chocolate.

Article a couple months back from the Times about Great Neck...

More than a decade ago, the Village of Cedarhurst on the South Shore went through a demographic and cultural shift similar to what some say Great Neck is experiencing now, when a large influx of observant Jews, many of them members of the Orthodox Hasidic tradition, moved in and persuaded storekeepers and restaurant owners to close up shop on Saturday.

“On a Saturday now you could bowl down Central Avenue, Cedarhurst’s main shopping street,” said Linda Tsuruoka, who for many years ran a picture framing store there. “One day a man came to my store and said, ‘We’d prefer that you closed on Saturday.’ And I smiled and I said, ‘That’s nice,’ and I moved my business to Woodmere.”

She now works as a Hebrew school principal in Great Neck. “And I see the signs of what happened there happening here now,” Ms. Tsuruoka said.

For Sabbath on Saturdays, Fewer Open Shops

^^ Very true. the people who ran the company I worked for were very religious Orthodox Jews.

LongTimeSloper wrote: [quote=raw][quote=nitcomb][quote=daver][quote=kosherdave]I think I have seriously been past it twice when it was actually open and I live like 2 blocks away, walk by EVERY DAY on my commute!

There are a couple stores like that around me. On the rare occasion that I am off and home on a work day, I'm always like, whoa! Where did _that_ place come from? Only to realize that it has been there for a long time, I've just never seen it open before.

Kinda like Slope Jeans off the corner of Garfield & 7th. They're closed on Saturday during the biggest shopping day of the week around there. During the week, nobody is in there buying expensive jeans....
Closed on Saturday? How do they stay in business? Did they get the $200/month rental special from Mr. Friendly Landlord or are they selling more than jeans in there?

The jeweler on 7th Avenue and 8th Street also closes on Saturdays and he has managed to stay in business for at least 16 years now. If you sell one diamond necklace for 10,000 each month, you could survive.

I think he (the jeweler) owns the building
Earth Tonez on 5th Avenue between 4th & 5th also closes Saturday...they're not Jewish but they observe the sabbath as Saturday. The owner told me he's been criticized because it's such a busy "shopping/eating" day, but this is the way he grew up and the sabbath is important to him.