Today we’d like to introduce you to Kay Thibodeaux.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started as a representative of the home party division of Dove Chocolate in 2009, while living in MN. I was with that company for 12 years and was always in the top 10 in sales, sponsoring & group volume. I also earned every incentive trip the company offered (for me & my husband). We traveled to places like Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Jamaica, St. Kitts, Aruba, and Maui. In 2014, we moved from MN back to TX. I started doing truffle-making classes out of my home in 2015. In 2017, I earned my certification as a professional chocolatier from Ecole Chocolat. We opened our first location in Nov. 2021. In 2022, I worked on a cacao farm in Maui for a week. In Nov. 2024, we opened the location in Lakeside. We consolidated our 2 locations in August 2025 to our main storefront in Lakeside. We are a full-service bakery, chocolate shoppe and gift store…basically, your one-stop shoppe for any food or gifting needs! We also have a separate classroom in our shoppe so that we can continue to do truffle-making classes, birthday/anniversary events, create your own bar events, and more. I also do offsite classes and speaking engagements. This year, we are focusing on corporate gift-giving for the holidays as we can print logo box sleeves, or even just logo sugar cookies.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
2020 was a challenge as my business plan was to do a truffle-making class a week. When covid hit, I was able to sell my products at local farmers markets. We had to pay $215k to build out our first location (not including equipment), and continually had leaks in the roof. A year into that location, our sales went downhill because our landlord put a food truck park in front of the store. Finding the Lakeside location was a godsend, but it took us 6 months to get a building permit to build out our classroom.
Our biggest challenge now is that no one seems to know where we are, nor the fact that we do more than just chocolates. Our pastry chef is a graduate of Escoffier Pastry school & can do just about any dessert. Our chocolatier artist paints all of our bonbons (I still work on the fillings for them), Our giftware is all unique, and our classes are super fun.
Now that we can customize sugar cookies & logo box sleeves, we should see an upswing in sales & visibility. (If we could just get the walking traffic to stop in more often!)
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Our company is very unique in what we offer – full-service bakery, full-service chocolate shoppe, full-service gift store. Our team can do just about anything. And we can customize bonbons based on colors and flavors. I’m most proud of our team – our pastry chef has fantastic skills, and our chocolatier artist makes the most beautiful bonbons. I pride myself on the flavors…if they don’t taste good, no one is coming back!
What sets us apart? We use only Belgian chocolates for our confections, and everything is done in-house.
We also offer chocolate bars from bean-to-bar makers that I know personally. I’ve been to their farm or factory, worked on their farm, or met the maker at places like the Fancy Food Show, Salon du Chocolat NYC, Sweets & Snacks Expo, Dallas Chocolate fest or SW Chocolate & Coffee Fest.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Ed Seguine (now deceased) taught me how to taste fresh cacao, as well as how to truly taste chocolate.
Chef Jin Caldwell – taught me basics in “playing” with chocolate.
Chef Kevin Wenzel with Wiseman House chocolates – taught me additional knowledge about truffle-making.
Chefs at ChocolateWorld in Belgium – taught me how to utilize my equipment & how to airbrush.
Pricing:
- Truffles or bonbons – 6 piece box – $28
- truffles or bonbons – 12 piece box – $50
- Custom sugar cookies – $5 each (min 24)
- Haystacks, peanut clusters, meltaways, “turtles” -$1.50-$4
Contact Info:
- Website: www.TouringChocolatier.com
- Instagram: TouringChocolatier
- Facebook: Touring Chocolatier
- Other: TikTok – TouringChocolatier
Image Credits
Photos were all done by me
