Dick Taylor

“I think (the coffee company) is going to move a lot of their roastery down there, so it’s going to be a really neat place to hang out and see how coffee is roasted and chocolate is made and also have a really exceptional cup of coffee,” Dick said.

Dick and Taylor began their chocolate venture back in 2010 when they were working as carpenters.

“We were making chocolate in my laundry room, so it wasn’t necessarily even the beginning of business idea but it just kind of grew and grew,” he said. “It’s always kind of been a little bootstrap, do it ourselves kind of thing, but now we’re ready to have more space to interact and do more education.”

Dick said he’s excited to get back to the tasting and pairing events they held pre-pandemic and is eager to see how they can expand such events in a bigger facility in the future.

Dick and Taylor have been working on the purchase of their new facility for the last two and a half years. The building dates back to the late 1800s and has been vacant for decades. In 2016, Pierre LeFuel and Karen Banning purchased the building and began renovations with hopes of bringing new life to the Eureka waterfront. However, their work creased after LeFuel’s untimely death in 2017.

“(LeFuel and Banning) bought the building in an incredibly dilapidated state and they put a ton of work into it,” Dick said. “After his tragic passing, we got the building going with (Banning) before she later passed of cancer. We had talked to them for years and they had a wonderful vision for Old Town and for the waterfront. When we were talking about selling (Banning) really wanted to make sure that our visions aligned.”

As Dick and Taylor move forward, Dick said it feels as though they’re carrying on a family project that began with LeFuel and Banning. “We’re really trying to build something down there that gets people down to the water to enjoy our beautiful waterfront,” he said.

More information on Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate can be found at www. dicktaylorchocolate.com.