Sweet treats: Jael and Dan Rattigan lure Asheville visitors with artisan chocolate.

• Author: Foltz-Gray, Dorothy
• Position: PICTURE THIS

On almost any weekend evening year-round, chocolate lovers wait on the sidewalk outside the French Broad Chocolate Lounge on Pack Square in Asheville. Even on cold or rainy nights, dedicated consumers line the block. On a recent Saturday--always their busiest day --the Lounge served 900 customers seeking the best sellers: the Liquid Truffle sipping chocolate and the salted honey caramel. Last year, French Broad Luscious Chocolates LLC grossed $2.6 million by selling 18 tons of chocolate: 12 tons from the 2,400-square-foot Lounge and 6 tons in bulk chocolate or bars sold to other businesses.

It's quite a success story for what began humbly. In 2003, Jael and Dan Rattigan met at a wedding in Minneapolis. Jael had a plane ticket to Costa Rica to attend an environmental-business seminar. She flew down, and Dan followed. "We fell in love with each other and with a small village on the southern Caribbean coast called Puerto Viejo," she says. They decided to drop out of graduate school at the University of Minnesota (she was in business school; he quit law school) and drove a vegetable oil-powered school bus back to Costa Rica. They bought an abandoned, 5-acre cacao farm for $10,000 and invested $3,000 to start a cafe and dessert shop called Bread and Chocolate. "We got some education from microscale artisans on farms in Costa Rica," Dan says. "But most of our learning has been in our kitchen. We picked up books and tools and made it happen."

In 2006, the pair, who had married by then, decided to return to the states with their infant son, Sam, now 10. The Rattigans, who also have a second son, Max, 8, climbed back on the bus and, on the recommendation of some cafe customers, drove to Asheville, a place they'd never visited. "People said Asheville was a progressive culture with an emphasis on high-quality food," Dan says. The pair dug in, making chocolate desserts in their home kitchen and selling them at local farmers markets and online. The business outgrew their house, and in 2008, they opened the first incarnation of the French Broad Chocolate Lounge on Lexington Avenue, serving truffles, cookies, cakes and hot chocolates, along with beer and wine. "We got a $60,000 business loan, and our parents each offered $10,000," Jael says. "That's a shoestring for opening a restaurant, but we didn't understand that at the time."

Their timing proved perfect, their craft chocolate aligning with the craze for locally made beer and coffee. It helped that...