Quick Take
After 40 years, Santa Cruz chocolate maker Mackenzies Chocolates is closing. Husband-and-wife team Ian and Mary Rose Mackenzie, along with one employee, make all of the chocolate and candy by hand, and said they’re ready to retire and spend more time with family. The last day to purchase chocolates is Dec. 24.
On Christmas Eve, a Santa Cruz holiday tradition is coming to an end. After 40 years, Mackenzies Chocolate will stop production of its handmade chocolates and close its production facility and shop on the corner of Soquel Avenue and Frederick Street.
Inside the distinct, Old English-style building is a dizzying array of whimsical chocolate shapes. So many molded chocolates, from baby carriages and ballerinas to tools and trucks, line the shelves that it’s hard to know where to look. Many are chocolate forms stuffed with smaller chocolates, such as a cornucopia overflowing with autumn leaves, or a Christmas ornament containing tiny chocolate teddy bears. The abundance and creativity is magical.
Doorways behind the counter give a clear view of the production area, including huge copper pots for mixing caramel and toffee, and thousands of chocolate molds neatly stacked on shelves. This is where Mary Rose and Ian Mackenzie, along with one employee, Juan Carlos Garcia, make every piece of candy from scratch.
After decades of long days that start in the small hours of the morning, the Mackenzies said they’re ready to retire. The job is physically demanding, too, said Mary Rose, requiring lots of heavy lifting. “We’re exhausted,” she said.
An enormous jump in the cost of cocoa also contributed to the decision to close. The price of the cocoa they use rose 67% this year, and while the Mackenzies are able to keep the price of their chocolate at an affordable $36 per pound, it would be impossible for them to maintain that price in the future, the couple said.
High cocoa prices also discouraged them from selling the business. “If a new owner came in and raised all the prices, it wouldn’t look very good – even if the old owner would have had to do the same thing if they’d stayed,” said Mary Rose. Ian added that it would also take them years to train any new owners on how to produce Mackenzie’s trademark handcrafted chocolates.
“We’re profitable, but we’re just done,” said Ian.
During the month of December, Mackenzies sells around 450 pounds of toffee and around 1,000 pounds of creams and assorted chocolates. All of it is sold through the shop. Mackenzies doesn’t take orders online or by phone because it would be too time-consuming for the small staff of three, said Mary Rose.
The shop is open six days a week – it’s closed on Sundays – through Dec. 24.
Ian’s parents, Thelma and Colin Mackenzie, founded the shop in 1984. Both immigrants from Nova Scotia, Canada, Thelma wasn’t impressed with American chocolate when the couple moved to Santa Cruz. She began making her own at home using chocolate from Pennsylvania-based Merckens Chocolate, which the Mackenzies still use today. Colin purchased the property at the corner of Frederick Street in the early 1980s for Thelma as an anniversary present, and when that building burned down, they designed and built a Nova Scotia-style chocolate factory, hence the shop’s eye-catching design.
Thelma died in 2021, and Colin, a former physician, is now 93 years old.
Ian and Mary Rose met when she started working at Mackenzies soon after the shop opened. The couple has been married for 37 years, and welcomed their first grandchild in October. “We raised our kids here,” said Mary Rose. Framed photos of their children as babies with chocolate dripping off their heads and down their sides hang on a wall in the shop, and she describes how they would sometimes sneak over from their home next door to dip bars of chocolate covered English toffee in fresh caramel before school.
After the shop closes on Dec. 24, the Mackenzies are looking forward to spending more time with their family and grandson, and participating in a beloved family tradition: “In a few months, we get to dip another baby in chocolate.”
1492 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz; mackenzieschocolates.com; 831-425-1492.
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