Westchester woman celebrates nearly 40 years with her Lil' Chocolate Shoppe in Pleasantville
Annette Colasuonno opened the store in 1986 after a chance meeting in the Hamptons.
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Valentine’s Day will be here before you know it, and one Westchester chocolate shop owner has been celebrating it for almost 40 years.
One by one, Annette Colasuonno places a variety of truffles into a brand-new box for her Lil' Chocolate Shoppe in Pleasantville. It's a tradition she unexpectedly found herself doing for almost 40 years now.
"I opened the store in 1986," she said. "I was away in the Hamptons with my children for the summer, and I met a gentleman who said his store [was] closed in the summertime, and he was going to sell his business. I said, 'Oh, that sounds to me like a really good idea.' I could take off with the kids for their vacations. I said, 'You know what? I think I can buy it.'"
There was just one tiny problem, but that ultimately didn't stop her.
"I've never made chocolate," Colasuonno said. "I was never into chocolate. I was never really into any of it, but I thought it was a good idea, and I said, 'You know what? I'll just do it.'"
Since then, Colasuonno has served multiple items like custom chocolates she makes herself, as well as other truffles, chocolate covered pretzels and candy. While she's behind most of the work, she gets a bit of help from those closest to her.
"When I first opened the store, I never realized how busy I was going to be," she explained. "So, my children were working in my store with me constantly because it was either here or home. So, they came here to work with me, and they learned to do all sorts of things. They learned to run a business from the time they were 5 and 8 ... During the holidays, my grandkids come in. [They are] 14 and 16, but they started coming when they were younger than that. My daughter [also] comes in, and she will revamp a lot of things."
One of those parts of the business: the technological side of it, which has helped Colasuonno keep her business up to date with the latest trends.
"My daughter and my grandchildren put in a QR code for the store about two years ago," she said. "That was really interesting, because I don't even know how to use it. They did all the work on it. Young people are very different. They see certain things and they'll say to me, 'Grandma, you should get this. You should get that. You should change this.' So, they're really the little eyes of what you really should do."
That family support soon expanded to support from the community, with Colasuonno creating lifelong connections with her customers over the past four decades.
"Once you have a customer, they love coming in," she said. "They love telling you about their children [and] what their children are doing...even if they're not buying something, they just want to come in and say hello, which is fine with me... I have no idea when I will retire. I enjoy it. I have great customers. ...that's how Pleasantville really is."
And her most important customers? The children she gets to see grow up.
"The kids are definitely the people who will buy everything," Colasuonno said. "They buy everything; they try everything; they buy truffles [and] candy bars, but they're very consistent...They are usually from [about] fifth grade to about seventh or eighth grade. Once they get older, they kind of move on. They do more things, but they come back when they're older and adults. Sometimes they're married, and they'll say, 'Oh, I used to come here and there was this woman here.' And I'm like, 'I am the same woman!'"
The Lil' Chocolate Shoppe is located at 15 Washington Ave. in Pleasantville. If you want to place an order for custom-made and shaped chocolates, you can call Colasuonno at 914-769-0771.
