Laughing Gull proprietor takes chocolate to a new level

“I’m going to save the world with chocolate.”

That is the declaration that Lindsay Tarnoff, owner of Laughing Gull Chocolates, made in college, and the idea stuck. She grew up baking with her mother, her two sisters and her grandmother, developing an affinity for chocolate from childhood. While studying government, Spanish and Latin America at Skidmore College, she ended up tying those three subjects together with a capstone paper on the history and morality of chocolate.

While working on her paper, she traveled to Mexico and studied trade, examining it from the angles of free trade and fair trade. By the time she returned home, she was determined to find a way to use chocolate to save the world.

“I find the history of chocolate fascinating. It’s over 5,000 years old; there are moral issues and gender issues and social justice issues wrapped in chocolate,” says Tarnoff. “Plus our environment is truly impacted by how it grows. A lot of times rain forests are chopped down to grow rows and rows of cacao trees. Primates eat the fruit inside the cacao pod, but the (nutritional) quality is really low, and there have been studies that have shown that the number of primates has decreased significantly.”

Cacao, the seeds from which chocolate is made, is great for the environment in terms of biodiversity if other types of plants are being grown around it.

“But a farmer that only grows cacao can only sell cacao and is completely dependent on the market,” Tarnoff points out. “In a couple of generations that land will be completely depleted. It’s much better for the farmer, the land and future generations if the farmer also grows coconuts and plantains and bananas because that continues to add nutrients to the soil.”

After graduating from Skidmore in 2005, Tarnoff worked for nonprofits and eventually transitioned to higher education in Providence, R. I., near her hometown of Barrington. She was working with international students at Johnson & Wales University Providence Campus and taking pastry classes when she began selling her homemade chocolate truffles.

The week that Tarnoff signed the paperwork to form her chocolate truffle business, her grandmother died.

“My grandmother was inspiration for me in a lot of ways. She was an avid chocolate lover and bird lover,” says Tarnoff. “One day my husband and I were looking through a bird book and thinking about her, and my husband (Andy) was the one who pointed out Laughing Gull, which is a type of seagull. I called my mom and asked her what she thought about the name Laughing Gull Chocolates, and she said, ‘That’s it,’ and the name stuck.”

Tarnoff, 35, and Andy moved from Rhode Island to Rochester in August 2016. Shortly after their move, she became pregnant with their daughter. She was pursuing Laughing Gull part time, selling at the Rochester Public Market, when she and Andy considered whether it made sense to take the business full time.

They decided to go all in. In February 2018, Laughing Gull Chocolates opened up shop at 1868 E. Main St.
“I didn’t know how I was going to run a business and raise a newborn. One of those tasks alone is hard, but both meant twice the work,” admits Tarnoff. “So I was looking for someone who I could partner with, someone who was in a similar situation as me and who could help raise my child and I could help raise their child.”

Laughing Gull’s chief chocolatier found not one but two business partners serendipitously. Tarnoff met Karla Boyle, now chief operations officer at Laughing Gull, at Beautiful Birth Choices, a pregnancy care center in Rochester. Like Tarnoff, Boyle was there with an infant, and the two hit it off. Tarnoff explained her vision to Boyle and they saw a future working together.

A few months later, Tarnoff met new mother Allison Zukoski at Beautiful Birth Choices. Zukoski is now Laughing Gull’s chief financial officer.

The business has evolved into more than just a brick-and-mortar shop selling chocolate truffles. The menu has expanded, and Tarnoff has partnered with many local vendors to bring a taste of Laughing Gull to area chocolate lovers.

Some of the shop’s truffle varieties include salted caramel, lavender vanilla honey and raspberry. Tarnoff and her team also make vegan chocolate bark and a salted caramel chocolate sauce that has gained traction around town.

“The salted caramel chocolate sauce is great on ice cream with fresh fruit,” she says. For “that recipe I had help from my sister. … We make it all ourselves, and I’m biased, but I like it and I don’t typically like salted caramel.”

In addition to the homemade chocolate treats, Laughing Gull offers espresso, chai kits by the Chai Guy, local cheeses for chocolate and cheese pairings, Guglielmo’s marinara sauce and offerings from Eat Me Ice Cream, Flour City Pasta, and Lavender Moon.

“We also sell other types of chocolate bars that are ethically and locally sourced,” says Tarnoff. “The chocolate bars are shelf-stable, but our truffles are not. They’re good for one to two weeks—three weeks max. They’re best kept at room temperature.”

Tarnoff is passionate about using ethically and locally sourced ingredients. She embraces locality, and Laughing Gull has experienced exciting partnerships with area businesses like Three Heads Brewing and Living Roots Wine & Co. Three Heads recently made a salted caramel chocolate stout from Laughing Gull’s famous sauce.

“The beer was well-received,” notes Tarnoff, proudly. “My husband was looking on Tapped, a beer app, and it got pretty high reviews.”

Tarnoff is looking forward to a new partnership with Belhurst Castle in Geneva, where Laughing Gull will be participating in the destination’s wine and chocolate pairing events. The Laughing Gull team is aiming to forge more partnerships like this with local businesses to be out in the community more. Juxtaposed with this goal is the desire to be a better community space for locals.

“We’re looking to create a teaching kitchen,” she says. “Right now we use our space, which is also our toddler’s space, so we have to do quick transitions. We’d like to have a designated toddler space and a designated teaching kitchen.”

Tarnoff never could have imagined that this is where her journey would lead her, but sure enough she has made her dream of changing the world with chocolate a reality.

“There are lots of challenges that come with owning a business, but there are always ways around or over or through. Sometimes what happens isn’t what your vision was, but sometimes it’s better,” she says. “I started this saying I was going to save the world with chocolate, which was tongue-in-cheek, but here we use all ethically sourced ingredients and we’re raising awareness through chocolate. At the same time, we have our kids with us while we’re advancing our careers. We’re making the world a better place in a variety of different ways.”

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