Closing Ceremony
July 4, 2026
Hello, I’m your host Malena, owner and founder of The Xocolate Bar.
After 20 years in business, The Xocolate Bar is closing its doors. We invite you to witness our closing ceremony, which will unfold in three parts. Please follow me to the back for part one.
Part 1: Burning of the Grievances
The chocolate business is bittersweet.
Behind the scenes of beauty, artistry, and deliciousness, there is also hardship. Over twenty years, we’ve seen a lot.
On a macro scale, we have weathered the housing crisis, the pandemic, economic booms and busts, climate change, the cocoa crisis, ridiculous immigration policies, soaring costs of living, and a world that often felt doomed.
On a micro scale, we have weathered feast and famine cycles, labyrinthine bureaucracy, impossible expectations, chronic pain, burnout, and the frayed edges that appear when human beings work beyond their capacity.
For all these reasons, I provided my employees with a box of Good Riddance, where they could privately deposit the hardships they are ready to release.
As it burns, may our burdens be transformed, carried away, and never re-lived.
With our grievances, I have mixed:
~Cocoa nibs to honor the bitterness
~Cedar to transform anger
~Sage for cleansing
~Palo santo and copal for blessing
Let’s hold a moment of silence and watch the burn.
May the lessons we’ve learned sink in deeply and protect us.
May we put struggle behind us and move forward with ease.
Part 2: Reading of the Love Letters
Now let's transition to considering the tremendous energy that has fueled our twenty-year journey.
The energy that gave us strength, resilience, willingness, and wild success in the obstacle course of small business.
The name of that energy is love.
None of this would have been possible without the love and support we have for each other, from our families, from our community, from our ancestors, and from all the benevolent spirits that have lifted us up.
This box has been outside the shop since I announced our closure a month ago. Inside are love notes from customers sharing what The Xocolate Bar has meant to them.
I’m going to pass them around.
Please read them, and share them with each other while I prepare our final blessing.
Part 3: Edible Milagros
Before we add any of our own artistry to it, chocolate is already a miracle.
The scientific name for the chocolate tree is Theobroma cacao — literally “food of the gods, cacao.”
Across cultures and throughout history, chocolate has been associated with ritual, devotion, connection, and transformation. It contains compounds that can lift our mood, open our senses, and remind you of the feeling of falling in love.
So I’m leaving you with one final taste of our chocolate in its purest form:
Our world-famous sipping chocolate.
For two decades it has enchanted people who walked through our doors. It is simply melted dark chocolate and hot water, but somehow the sum is greater than its parts.
To add to its natural magic, I am melting in these chocolate symbols as our final blessing.
May we all float gently onto bright new paths.
May the community we serve continue to love us back.
May joy, wonder, and kindness be our guiding lights.
May our creativity shine brightly as a beacon through dark times.
May we all know love so beautiful it makes us cry.
Thank you all who are here in the flesh, and thank you to those who are here in spirit.
LONG LIVE THE XOCOLATE BAR!
Let’s drink.
As we enjoy our chocolate, I’ll read a poem that carried me through this season of transformation:
“Leap” by Joy Sullivan was read at the ceremony; the poem is not reproduced here.