The Story Behind the Success 
of Li-Lac Chocolates

By Anthony Paradiso

LI-LAC, the chocolate shop that was moved from Christopher street in 2005, is currently at 75 Greenwich Avenue in the village. Photo by Cameron Angel Baylem.

The first Li-Lac Chocolates shop opened on Christopher Street in 1923. Written on Li-Lac Chocolates’ website is the slogan “stubbornly old fashioned” — the identity that has sustained them for the last 100 years and that has seen them grow into a true success story despite many changes in ownership.
In 1923, a Greek immigrant named George Demetrious opened the original shop at 120 Christopher Street. Demetrious studied “the art of chocolate making in France” and brought these skills into his new business venture in the land of opportunity. Over the next nine decades, Li-Lac would become more and more popular with the locals but Demetrious and his successors never lost sight of their integrity. When trendy ingredients and mass production emerged as the model for the modern chocolatier, Li-Lac remained true to its history and tradition, eschewing automation and trendiness.
Demetrious passed away in 1972 and “trusted his recipes and business to his devoted employee of 25 years, Marguerite Watt.” Watt ran Li-Lac until 1978 when she sold the business to Edward Bond who ran it until he died of AIDS in 1990. His sister, Martha, then took control. The company opened its third location, inside the Grand Central Station terminal, in 1999.
Due to the rising cost of rent, the company moved out of their original shop in 2005, and settled into the 75 Greenwich Avenue location, which is still open today. In 2014, Li-Lac opened their main chocolate factory in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

LI-LAC’S NEW MANAGEMENT TEAM, above. Photo by Cameron Angel Baylem.

In 2011 a trio of businessmen purchased Li-Lac and ushered the historic company into a new era. Anthony Cirone, Christopher Taylor and Anwar Khoder have built upon the strong foundation by opening three new shops, one on Bleecker Street and another in Hudson Yards.
However, Taylor made it clear that Li-Lac hasn’t forgotten the company’s roots. “The West Village is where we grew up for over 100 years,” he said. “The West Village is the soul of Li-Lac. We will always have a store in the West Village and the Greenwich Avenue store will always be our flagship store. In terms of sales, Grand Central and Chelsea Market are our big two stores but in terms of our loyal repeating customers, nothing beats Greenwich.”
Anwar Khoder, chief operating officer and master chocolatier, came to Li-Lac in the late 1980s. He was studying computers when opportunity came knocking. His cousin who worked at Li-Lac told him they needed help. “I started working there and I fell in love with it from day one. It wasn’t easy. I didn’t have any chocolate background and I learned on the job,” he said.
It has been said that if you “find a job you love, you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” Although, Khoder’s work may not always be peaches and cream, the longevity points to how much he loves working for Li-Lac. “My job is running the production side,” he said. “I make the product with the packaging, the molding, the unloading. At the same time, I’m the chocolatier and I manage 25 people at the factory. After 35 years, I just keep everything running.”
Over the last 10-15 years the company has doubled in size but it hasn’t lost track of the style that got them here. “After my brother died,” Bond told Taylor, “I just went crazy. I gave chocolate to every AIDS and LGBTQ organization that asked for it. That’s how I built the most loyal following in the gay community. Whatever you do, just be involved in the community.” Li-Lac continues that tradition today. They happily give chocolate to support nonprofit events in the Village or around their stores.
The road to success hasn’t been paved for Taylor and his partners. They had to do the paving. While preparing for the 2012 holiday season, Khoder and Cirone came up with a plan that would change the way they packaged gift boxes. When they first told their partner, Chris Taylor, he was opposed to it. Taylor had calculated that the plan would require a “$40,000 investment” along with $1.50 linen box covers. Taylor told his partners that the gift box plan would ruin Li-Lac’s profit margins, but in the end, supported it.
“The gift boxes came out the week of Hurricane Sandy and our sales that Christmas went through the roof,” Taylor said. “What I learned is when you’re in the chocolate business, you’re in the gifting business and when you’re in the gifting business, you’re in the packaging business. What customers care about is the packaging. Since then, Anthony can spend whatever he wants on packaging. That’s how we went from a little chocolate store to what we are today.”
This was a turning point for Li-Lac which laid the foundation to expand starting with opening the Industry City factory in 2014. Shortly after the success of their gift boxes, ‘The Three Musketeers of Li-Lac’ were faced with another big decision—to expand or not to expand. Expansion soon became the way to go.
“That’s when we opened up the Chelsea Market and Bleecker Street stores,” said Taylor. “The Chelsea store has been an amazing success. In New York, I guess we’re supposed to hate landlords. But we’ve been very fortunate. Our landlords kept us alive during the pandemic. The Jamestown real estate firm and Google have been fantastic. The same goes for Grand Central, Hudson Yards and Industry City.”
Li-Lac has a driven ownership group and their growth over the last decade is no accident, but the work is never over. According to Taylor, the greatest trait for someone who strives to be great at something is to admit that they’re never done learning. This is how they operate their business.
Taylor stated, “Just when we said we can rest on our laurels and we’re back to where our profitability should be, that’s when these shutdowns hit. Anthony migrated towards the Internet, putting a lot of money into our website. That (plus rent concessions from our landlords) is what kept our business alive and then last year I helped re-capitalize the company financially.”
Ever true to its roots, Li-Lac wants to make the next 100 years even better than the last. “The past 100 years is really a story of three people. Demetrious founded the company and ran it for half a century. Ed Bond brought a big wave of fresh energy and growth but sadly he passed away early. Fortunately, at the same time, Anwar Khoder joined the company. He was barely in his twenties but within a year he was running it. He’s the one who brought the company to our current 100-year milestone. And now our challenge is to build the next generation management team that will carry us to our 200-year anniversary.”