Photo courtesy Gearharts Fine Chocolates
Charlottesville chocolatiers Gearharts Fine Chocolates have been sorely missed by sweet-toothed Richmonders since the brand shuttered its outpost on Libbie Avenue in March of 2023. Now, they’re back and have expanded beyond their retail chocolate offerings with the addition of pastries and desserts. The new space opened last month in the Short Pump Station shopping center and is roughly double the size of their former location. “We’re bringing something that is unfulfilled in Richmond; that’s been the premise of the whole project,” founder Tim Gearhart says.
Many retail stores faced uncertain futures in early 2020, but Norma Santamaria, owner of Baggio Consignment, rolled with the punches and ended up improving her business. The high-end consignment store, closed in 2020, reopened late last year in the Stony Point Village shopping center after Santamaria established an online storefront early in the pandemic and hosted private appointments in her home. That model was such a success that she arranged an appointment-only window in-store Sunday through Tuesday. “I’m getting a lot more merchandise that I wanted, more than in the past,” Santamaria says.
