Photography courtesy of Brian Pelletier
It’s been 15 years since Brian Pelletier ditched the 9-to-5 world and dove headfirst into the culinary world, first as owner and head chocolatier of Kakao Chocolate, then as co-owner (with business partner Kate Hannan) of Tale to Table, which offers carefully curated culinary items, as well as classes and events. Both of Pelletier's businesses remain keystones of the Maplewood business district and the St. Louis culinary community at large.
How did you go from the corporate world to the culinary world? I had been in the corporate world for 20 years, and I was just feeling done. I wanted to do something completely different. What I wanted was something where I could be my own boss and run my own business. I was looking for something that I could physically make with my hands, and I was looking for something to do with food because I love to cook and I love to eat. Those were the things that I opened myself up to the universe with. The universe answered when I was at a dinner party and a friend of mine there said she had some chocolate-making equipment in her basement that she wanted to sell, and I said, ‘That’d be perfect.’ It was really that simple and that magical.
Were you all in initially? I did it in this order: I bought the equipment from her. I found a space I could rent to make chocolate. I quit my job. And I learned how to make chocolate.
Why chocolate? Well, I like chocolate as much as the next guy, but it was the idea of making it myself, the idea of having a company that did it just checked off all of the boxes. It was something that I could completely throw myself into and make it into a business.
What then got you interested in doing a concept such as Tale To Table? There’s still that element of me liking to cook and make things. Doing all of the farmers' markets with Kakao, we saw so many people who were making all of these wonderful things—like Salume Beddu, Umami Chili Crisps, Two Men and a Garden pickles... I thought, There’s all this great stuff here. There should be a place to get it all.
You ended up opening Tale To Table on the cusp of the pandemic. Our grand opening was March 2020, on lockdown weekend. We did a lot of pivoting, and we did a lot of stuff online and outdoors.
Any expansion plans in the near future? Probably not. We love our spaces, and Maplewood is a great place to have a business. It’s sort of like small-town St. Louis. It’s so walkable, and a lot of people come in and we can always do something fun, like classes and special events. People have always said we should franchise Kakao, but my goal [for Kakao] has always been to give people a reason to come to St. Louis—‘If you come to St. Louis, you have to go to Kakao Chocolate.’ At one point, I had three [Kakao locations], and that was a lot—a lot of shuffling and schlepping. Now, we have one [location], and I feel like that’s pretty solid. The idea of opening another store isn’t something that I’m excited about, especially having already done it. For Tale To Table, it’s not easily replicable, and we’re continuing to get lots of traction with our classes. We’re always bringing new things into the shop, things we can tell stories about, and we have a long list of stuff we want to bring in.
