Photo by Chris Militzer
Kim Gustafson, owner of Bluprint Chocolatiers in Old Town Alexandria
Old Town Alexandria resident Kim Gustafson traded the buttoned-up corporate world for life as a chocolate maker and retail store owner, opening Bluprint Chocolatiers at 1001 King St. after getting inspired on a trip to Europe with her husband Bruce.
"What I like best is the connection I make with people," Gustafson said of her newfound career during a recent interview at the store, where they'll celebrate the third anniversary of the Bluprint Chocolatiers next month.
Gustafson makes all the store's chocolates in the lower level of the shop using high-end European chocolate from Valrhona Chocolates (founded in 1922 in France) and Belgian chocolate company Callebaut. The shop serves up coffee from Brio Coffeeworks in Burlington, Vermont. The chocolates are only limited by Gustafson's imagination and inspiration.
"Often we'll do seasonals," she said, such as Thai curry cashew. "It's all original work. Right now we've got a Cherry Bounce inspired by George Washington's Birthday. Sometimes people bring us things — like elderflower, ghost pepper or Porter beer from Portner Brewhouse."
In her previous life, Gustafson worked for big food companies Cargill, Wrigley, Dr. Pepper and Snapple in food science, regulatory affairs, and research and development. Living in Minneapolis, she rode her bicycle 12 miles to Cargill's corporate headquarters in Wayzata. "It got darn cold sometimes," she said.
A Cincinnati native, her father's world was engineering and math and her mother was a nurse. She got her undergrad degree in Nutrition at Eastern Kentucky University, a Master's in Food Science at University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and an MBA at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. In Knoxville, "I did my internship at White Lily Flour where I made biscuits," she said. "Food science is a lot of fun."
Gustafson's husband's telecom career brought them to Washington, D.C. from Texas. Her consulting job in the District was "uninspiring and unfulfilling," she said. While she often found the work fun and challenging, she felt it was missing "a little heart." A trip to Europe got ideas percolating on a big career switch.
"We went through a few little chocolate shops in Sweden and Denmark, your head's in vacation space, and we thought, 'This would be fun, I wonder what it would take?'" she said. On the flight home they started talking about what they would need to do to get a chocolate shop off the ground. She put together a 120-page business plan.
After searching for just the right location for nine months, they found their space at the corner of King and S. Patrick streets in Old Town. They signed the lease in November 2014 and opened their doors in April 2015.
Less than a year after opening, Gustafson was hit with an unusual challenge when white supremacist Richard Spencer moved into an apartment upstairs in the building. She said the community has been good to them and supports them by stopping in often and buying chocolates.
"At first we really tried to stay neutral," she said, but then they realized that people thought she owned the building and had rented to him. "So then we leaned in and said, 'No, no, no that's not who we are,'" she said. She created a special chocolate bar called Inclusion that's for sale and donates proceeds to the ACLU.
Why the name Bluprint Chocolatiers? "We think of chocolates sort of like an architect thinks of a building and the structure and beauty and design," Gustafson said. With her background in food science and her husband's in engineering, "It fits with how we think; we have formulas, not necessarily recipes. We do things in structured ways." Part of the logo also features a bean pod from the cacao plant.
"What I like best is my connection with the public and they're delighted to have chocolates," Gustafson said. "People sit down and they have chocolates and they enjoy a moment together and that seems to be missing in the world sometimes. I love that."
If you're considering making a leap, following your passion to a new career? "Come up with a good plan," Gustafson advised, "don't be risk averse, and learn a good work-life balance."
