Hooper’s Chocolates

To Carol G.: Fenton’s is still there, on Piedmont Ave, still making their own ice cream and still a great place to go. Edy’s ice cream is still around, although I do not think there is an ice cream shop anywhere in the Bay Area.

I have been looking for Hoopers fabulous fondant Easter eggs for the last 20years since we moved to L.A. Now I find that they reopened and were awful! What happened to the original recipes? I so wanted my grandchildren to taste those fabulous treats that their parents enjoyed! It seems that Fentons, Edys and Hoopers have all passed away like old friends and no co. has provided the same wonderful experiences for this generation of children! Sooo sad! Hooper family where have you gone???

This place is now a nothing shop again. Oh, mysterious pink house.

The place itself isn’t much to see, the chocolate isn’t worth the price, and i think they are religious too. 3 strikes for me, no thanks.

Open Saturdays now as promised.
All the more reason to spend some time visiting Remedy Café and Hoopers and other stalwarts in the Telegraph area.
Yay I am jazzed to get back in there.
Wonderful stuff.

Oh, lordy. Hooper’s purveyors are sweeter than candy and the prices of their mammoth confections sweeten the deal even more. One can get a hefty truffle for a little over a buck here, which is unheard of these days. What’s sweeter than any of the abovementioned awesomeness are, unfortunately, the candies themselves. This stuff is sure enough to give you a toothache, so do not venture if you are looking for the dark stuff. But there are still treasures to be found, such as the pretzel-​caramel truffles. This place is about on par with See’s Candies as far as flavor and quality goes, but it definitely wins for its local factor. And the house looks like a big ol’ pink wedding chapel straight out of Vegas, for G’s sake! Sounds like a winner to me.
Is this place really closed? It would be such a shame to see another long-​standing, family-​owned institution (the owner mentioned that her father started Hooper’s when she was but a wee child, and now she is in her sixties) close its doors.

Do not expect Scharffen Berger (now owned by Hershey’s) here or other 60% and up super dark chocolate. This is chocolate from back in the day. If you’re short on funds you can get «Hooper’s Bloopers» to calm your sweet tooth. Or you can say, «I want $ 2 worth of milk chocolate honeycomb,» and someone will weigh it out for you. Talking to the clerk is worth whatever you pay. Each person has a sense of Oakland lore to tell and since the place isn’t very busy, they are ready and willing to talk.

Okay. Yes, the chocolate is a bit sweeter than a lot of the more expensive places. It’s still pretty darn good! Remember in the 80’s when the truffles you’d buy would be really big and round? Sometime in the recent past, they all became these teeny, tiny things. And for double the price. Not to say the expensive chocolates aren’t worth the money, but how many of us want to blow $ 100 just to barely get a nibble of say, 12 different flavors? Literally the size of a nickel in most cases.
So today, after my trip to unload junk at the reuse center, my darling BF (who is equipped with some sort of internal super-​naughty-​food homing device) spotted Hooper’s across the way. The biggest pink house I’ve ever seen (in a good way) and a lovely interior. Sweet lady behind the counter…
And the return of those golf ball sized chocolate truffles! Yippee!
***************** AND AT $ 1.25 EACH ********************
You gotta love that! We left with 10 gigantic truffles for $ 12.00. Plus BF’s fave, humongous peanut butter cups that are the size of cupcakes. I could not believe it. You cannot buy less than $ 40 worth of chocolate at the place in San Jose where we normally go. The flavors are a tiny bit less potent than other places like Woodhouse, and they are a bit sweeter, but it’s not like they’re Russell Stover or some crap. I’ll definitely return on my rare trips to Oakland.

The chocolate is great. The pricing is also fair. The atmosphere is really beautiful, but the old lady who works the counter needs an attitude adjustment. She is an old black lady who has that «Im always right and even when Im wrong, Im right» Attitude.
When we went to the platter of displayed chocolates she rudely stated «Those ain’t free ya know» I asked if she had the peanut butter pillows and she rudely replied, «you must not pay attention to the news, you did not hear about the peanut butter recall?» and she went on and on ranting about how ignorant I must be because I don’t know about the peanut butter recall.
The truth however is that I knew about the recall but my asking wasn’t a foolish question since every peanut product was not recalled.
i guess she may not like young black married couples in her store because she treated like I was a nuisance instead of a cash carrying customer.
Even though my wife and I were verbally abused we still bought the chocolate that my wife picked out. It was a total cost of a few dollars but it would have been much more if she wasn’t so unprofessional at her Job.
That was the 2^nd time i had patronized her establishment and both times she was exceptionally rude to me and my wife.
and no chcolate not matter how tasty is worth having to put up with her 1 more time

Like another reviewer, I would like to love this place, since Oakland needs some love and had some classier times in the past.
I had hopes that Hooper’s would be one of these hidden remaining gems of Oakland like Mother’s cookies used to be (now Mother’s is gone) or Fentons.
Hooper’s is in a giant pink house with white trim on Telegraph avenue and looks like it’s been luring people in for generations. It comes complete with glass cases, a drawing-​room-​like atmosphere and the classy-​looking picture of the original suit-​wearing owner who started it in 1939 to sell candies made from Belgian chocolate. It’s like a house out of a Ray Bradbury story – only in Oakland instead of on Mars.
The woman who helped me was really nice and very helpful. More points. And from the web site it sounds like they donate money for autism charities (another bonus). The prices aren’t even so bad at $ 13.99 a pound. Can I mention again how much I want to love this place?
But then I tasted the chocolate. Holy sugar! Honestly, couldn’t they just double the prices and sell half a pound of better chocolate for $ 15 instead of a pound of flavored sugar for $ 14? Was the quality always this bad, or maybe when it got closed and reopened under different owners they replaced all the ingredients with sugar to save money? Even the «dark chocolates» taste strongly of powdered sugar.
So I don’t know what to say. I love everything about this place but their actual frosting-​like product which tastes like a 3-​musketeers bar (though that candy bar is fluffier, lighter and has better texture). I’m even someone who generally likes sugar-​y things and am not any kind of chocolate-​gourmet-​snob and my expectations were on about the level of See’s Candy.
Maybe I can just go over there occasionally and give some money to the really nice people? Or maybe I can get them to resell me someone else’s better chocolate so I don’t have to eat theirs?
So much potential, sadly wasted. The rating is for the other awesome aspects, but not their chocolate.
If you do end-​up getting chocolate here, then get their chocolate-​covered nut products because the nuts mean that at least the whole chocolate isn’t made from pure sugar.

I love this place, and I’ve volunteered here several times. 6 – 10 times at the store and once at the art and soul festival. The chocolate is awesome. Practically everyone that works in front is a volunteer. :O And it’s pretty clean in the back where they make the chocolates. So have no fear, you probably won’t find a fly in your chocolate. Also, don’t be stingy when you buy the chocolate, profits go to the California Autism Foundation.

I really really want to like Hooper’s — actually, I like everything about it except that the chocolates they have (currently, not in the distant past) are disgusting. They are like Hershey’s, maybe worse.
The building is wonderful, the staff are sweet, and if you like super-​sweet confections and aren’t picky, then please don’t let me poop on your parade! It’s certainly worth a visit.

I remember being a little girl and my daddy taking me to Hooper’s and I honestly thought it was magical. All of their truffles are amazing and done so that they are completely filling without being too much. The flavor is great and gracefully stays not being too sweet. The iconic pink building just adds to the chocolate store magic of it, and going back reminds me of being six years old again. Amazing.

Have you ever seen the movie Willy Wonka? Yeah I know what is going on at this place, and If I told you I would have to kill you.

Since 1939, Belgian chocolate confections have been made and sold in this hard-​to-​miss two-​story Victorian landmark. As you enter, flocked cotton candy-​pink wallpaper and crystal chandeliers momentarily blind you. Once your sight returns, you’ll see display cases filled with a tempting array of milk and dark chocolate favorites, caramels, creams, truffles, and bonbons among them. You can select individual items to make up one or two pound boxes, or purchase pre-​packaged four-​ounce boxes with one type of candy in each. Look for the Bloopers, less-​than-​perfect creations missing a few details or slightly too large or too small, offered at only $ 5 per pound, less than half the regular price. Private tours of the facility can be arranged in advance. They hire, in ever-​increasing numbers, workers with disabilities, and donate a percentage of their profits to the California Autism Foundation, so you can indulge your sweet tooth guilt-​free, knowing your consumption of calories is supporting a good cause.