Posted by: Cafe Manager in Untagged on
Jun 18, 2010
The candy department's newest addition: hot chili truffles. With summer almost upon us, we're extending our hours beginning today, to 6:30am till 11pm seven days a week!
Posted by: Cafe Manager in Untagged on
Jan 22, 2010
You may now keep up with all t
hings Sparrow on our Facebook page (search for Hot Chocolate Sparrow), as well as post comments, reviews, or whatever you like.
After only three days, we've been joined by over three hundred fans!
We look forward to hearing from more of our local customers, as well as our many summer visitors and friends from around the world.
Come and take part, or just observe; the more the merrier!
UPDATE: One week in, and we've been joined by over a thousand fans. Thanks for checking us out!
Posted by: Cafe Manager in Untagged on
Dec 19, 2009
...from my iphone
Posted by: Cafe Manager in Untagged on
Dec 3, 2009
A number of people have written to ask if we sell gift cards.
We do, indeed, for any amount you like.
Simply stop by the store or call 1-800-9CANDY9 and we'll be happy to fill your holiday order.
Posted by: Cafe Manager in Untagged on
May 23, 2009
Three Destinations, One Indispensable Guide, including:
- What To See & Do (rain or shine)
- Outdoor Activities (kayaking to biking)
- Beaches
- Lodging (family-friendly cottages to luxe resorts to romantic B&Bs)
- Where to Eat (clam shacks & fancy feasts)
- Entertainment (baseball to summer theater)
- Selective Shopping (artisans to antiques)
Visit Kimgrant.com for ordering info.
Posted by: Cafe Manager in Untagged on
Apr 29, 2009
At first, Bob Sparrow didn’t think much of the little white rock with the strange black markings, but then more started appearing in the landscaping outside the Hot Chocolate Sparrow on Old Colony Way.
Sparrow, an easy-going guy, was more intrigued than alarmed.
“I thought it was some New Age thing,” he said.
As he spoke, two of the rocks in question were sitting quietly on the cream and sugar counter while the hubbub swirled around them. Each had the same message, written on both sides: a backward “R” and an “R” separated by three slashes on one line and an “X” bookmarked by two vertical lines underneath.
Sparrow passed one of the rocks to a regular customer and it was bobbled in the process. Jerome Greene quickly saved it before it disappeared in the trash barrel.
“But then (someone) told me it was witchcraft,” Sparrow continued, without changing his expression.
Greene pretended shock, and quickly unhanded the small stone, reminding it and the onlookers he had saved it from a trash trip.
Posted by: Cafe Manager in Untagged on
Feb 24, 2009
The Hot Chocolate Sparrow is one of those places where you always run into someone you know. Overrun in summer with visitors who don’t mind standing in line for the Orleans café’s signature frozen coffee drinks, grilled sandwiches or ice cream, it’s a hub all year long for people who stop daily to pick up coffee on their way to work, meet friends for lunch or come for dessert in the evening.
Right around now, the shop’s candy counter is especially busy as people rush in for boxes of chocolates for their sweeties for Valentine’s Day. And all those tempting truffles behind the glass represent the Sparrow’s true roots.
It was 20 years ago this week that Marjorie Sparrow opened her first location of The Chocolate Sparrow on Brackett Road in North Eastham, featuring delectable homemade chocolates.
Sparrow, who trained as a nurse, worked as an RN for five years before earning a master’s degree in nutrition and becoming a dietician. She worked for Outer Cape Health and the WIC program for more than a decade before deciding she wanted to do something different. People who know her background, she concedes, think it’s funny that a nutritionist wound up selling chocolate, but her philosophy is “Everything in moderation.”
Asked why she decided to open her own shop, she reflects, “It was about having my own business. My father had his own business, and he told me you had to have a business you love because you’ll be with it all the time. I like chocolate, so I picked chocolate.”
She thinks that choice – picking something she loved – had a great deal to do with the business’s success. And after all these years, she still enjoys it. “It’s an upbeat business,” she says. “People are mostly happy when they come to it – it’s not like medicine.”
Posted by: Cafe Manager in Untagged on
Feb 11, 2009
She may be a good two and a half decades past the typical age of retirement, but Dot Gallagher has no plans to give up her week
end job at The Hot Chocolate Sparrow in Orleans.
“I’m not going to retire, not until the last day,” declares Gallagher, who turned 92 this week.
“Aunt Dot,” as she is known to all at the popular coffee shop and café on Old Colony Way, began working at The Chocolate Sparrow when Marjorie Sparrow, Gallagher’s niece by marriage, founded the business 20 years ago this month, in 1989. She worked in the basement of the small storefront on Brackett Road in Eastham where the chocolate shop was first located, packing boxes of chocolate.
Gallagher still chides Sparrow for the exacting standards she held. “Every chocolate had to be in a certain spot and I said, ‘What difference does it make, they’re all going to different people?’” she recalls, with characteristic practicality. “But no, she had to have them all just so.”
Sparrow laughs, admitting, “I was very rigid in those days.” She, in turn, teases Aunt Dot about the time she gave her a pay raise, and Dot sent it back.
