One of San Francisco’s most innovative chocolate companies has closed. Topogato, which opened last May at 5203 Geary Blvd., made its final sales Monday. Owner Simon Brown plans to sell off equipment and find a new tenant. He will continue to make his cherry-shiso-balsamic truffles and strawberry almond bars available online.
“I’ve loved everything I’ve made,” Brown says, “but it wasn’t growing quickly enough.”
Brown blames record-high cacao prices and the steep cost of doing business in San Francisco. Cacao prices tripled in 2024, peaking toward the end of the year at a record $12,000 per metric ton. The price came down last year, but the correction overlapped with a tapering of consumer demand and increased costs related to packaging, materials, and shipping, Brown says.
Topogato’s margins are sometimes around 60%. But chocolate is not a necessity, and going into last year’s holiday season, shoppers were retreating from splurges. Though he recovered some sales toward the end of the year, the holiday boost was not enough. “People seemed to pull back on all their spending,” Brown says. “My friends in restaurants and bars also said it was a rough year.”…