Chocolates, ice cream returning to downtown Tecumseh at Harvest Chocolate and The Vault
TECUMSEH — For those who are old enough to remember The Chocolate Vault in downtown Tecumseh from the 1970s into the early 2000s, there’s something special returning.
The building at 110 W. Chicago Blvd., where that vault is located and where The Spotted Cow most recently had a shop, is reopening as Harvest Chocolate and The Vault soon.
Josh Roth purchased the vault, which is still in the building from when Lilley State Bank occupied it. He also owns the Musgrove & Co. coffee shop downtown.
Husband and wife Matt Cross and Elizabeth Gentry will be the owners of Harvest Chocolate, which will occupy the rest of the building.
Gentry will be making chocolates and chocolate bars straight from scratch, right down to roasting the cocoa beans which will be fair-trade sourced from around the world.
“It's a familiar space. We’re looking forward to kind of bringing back the ice cream and dessert back to downtown Tecumseh and as well as reliving some of The Chocolate Vault memories that a lot of people have here in town with Elizabeth making chocolate on site,” Roth said. “I’m from Tecumseh. I graduated from Onsted but spent my toddler years in Tecumseh and now I live here and own the coffee shop business in town. And I have many fond memories of The Chocolate Vault back in the day.”
Gentry comes from Adrian. She also has fond memories of The Chocolate Vault. Cross is from New York but has heard all about it.
The team plans to have hand-dipped ice cream from Hudsonville and gelato from Iorio of Manchester. There will also be fudge from Murdick’s of Suttons Bay, which will also be doing caramel corn and peanut brittle for the shop.
“We have the ice cream, the gelato, and we’re going to be doing old-fashioned sodas and then we will also have coffee to pour shots of espresso to go over the ice cream and that will be from Musgrove & Co.,” Roth said. “We will sell Harvest Chocolates to go along with the ice cream and the gelato as well as bars.”
Everything in the shop will be extra special.
“We make bean-to-bar chocolate. What’s neat about that is we’re making it completely from scratch, starting with cocoa beans. We source cocoa beans from all over the world. We source mostly from Costa Rica from Guatemala, Africa and a few other places, and what’s really interesting about that is based on where the cocoa beans are coming from, they have different tasting profiles,” Gentry said. “What we want to do with our chocolate is really highlight that and show people a different side of chocolate than they may have been raised with.”
Customers will be able to watch how the chocolate is made.
“We’ll be making it right on site. People will be able to see the machines going. They'll be able to smell the cocoa beans roasting and we’ll have seasonal chocolate bars. Everything we do is very seasonal. We source from local farmers as much as we can,” Gentry said.
Renovations are underway and the team is on track to open in mid-to-late April. The store hours will be 2 to 9 p.m. seven days a week. The team will be expanding those hours to include lunchtime orders as the summer months approach when school lets out and there are more kids out and about.
The team is seeking workers to fill part-time, full-time and management positions. Anyone who is interested should apply at tecumsehvault.com.
While the public is waiting for the shop to open, customers can follow Harvest Chocolate and The Tecumseh Vault on Facebook and Instagram for updates.
To place orders for chocolate, go to harvestcraftchocolate.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Sweets returning to downtown Tecumseh at Harvest Chocolate, The Vault
