San Francisco Chocolate Store

My name is Jack Epstein. I am my partner Marilyn owned chocolate covered here on 24th Street in Noe Valley. The chocolate store has now been in business for 27 years and it's going to be here until they carry me out. I'm originally from Manhattan and so in 1983 we decided to move up here and we told a couple of people were going to move up here and several of them said you should check out Noe Valley. When people come to my store whether they're there from away or whether they're local I just want them to leave a little happier than when they came. My t You don't have to I don't expect you to I don't Chocolate is just so universal and if you've ever walked by a chocolate store on Valentine's Day you t I want to give everybody a good time and have them want to come back. As long as they leave happy and leave me with a little money it's all good. It wasn't part of the original plan to make these boxes. I found generally an awe of the collection I put together over 27 years. I thought what a perfect gift. A beautiful box to save and keep forever filled with gourmet chocolate and at some point I said I can make some boxes. First I walked in different directions from Noe Valley with a simple camera that someone had given me and I take a snapshot and then I'd come back and go to Walgreens and develop them and then I'd go home that evening and make negatives and prints. Everyt My hands can be doing t Now then we're going to take the negative and line it up the way we want and then we slide it under the light. Once you rinse it the image appears and we'll mount it to a box. And I did that for several years a couple of times a week until I had 1800 of the city's 26 or 700 streets and then I thought what else do people find meaningful? Local restaurants, parks, bookstores, taqueries, everyt You buy them because the image is meaningful to you or the person you plan to give it to. These images that mean somet I don't believe there's any specific role I have in t I just try to do the right t Basically that's just come to the store, be kind to people, just putting out good energy here in the neighborhood. There's always changes in every city. There were nice people here when I moved, there's nice people here with a little more money now. There'still a wonderful place. Nobody has a city that doesn't have problems but I prefer to deal with them right here in San Francisco.