The first time I interviewed Shannon and Christy Fox was in 2012, when they were making chocolate truffles out of a tiny commercial kitchen on Ohio Street. A lot has changed for Evolve Truffles since then, but the couple’s adoration for each other remains as strong as ever.
These days, Christy commands the kitchen at Evolve Chocolate + Cafe, while Shannon works behind the scenes doing everything from shopping to watering the cafe’s wall of plants, marketing, bookkeeping and organizing merchandise — which includes a variety of mugs crafted by Bellingham-based Blue Water Pottery, packaged coffee, tea and clothing items.
On a recent afternoon at the eatery located on the top floor of Village Books, Shannon, 57, held up a rainbow-hued T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase, “There’s Love in Evolve.”
“It’s still true,” she said, laughing.
When asked if they imagined they’d be running their own restaurant 10 years after they started making and selling chocolate confectionaries, neither Shannon or Christy said they thought this is where they’d be. At the time, Christy, now 49, was burned out after spending more than 20 years in the restaurant industry.
“Chef Christy was pretty much hanging up her chef’s hat,” Shannon said. “We were thinking we were just going to run a chocolate shop.”
“I didn’t know what my own personal life was,” Christy said. “I couldn’t balance the two. And so: chocolate and truffles.”
Bourbon orange truffles are one of the many sweet things to be found at Evolve Chocolate + Cafe. Evolve Truffles co-owners and founders Christy and Shannon Fox grew their passion and added food and drinks to the cafe, which opened in 2018. (Andy Bronson/Cascadia Daily News) From the small kitchen on Ohio Street, Evolve Truffles made a move to a bigger kitchen on State Street. In ensuing years, they sold their handcrafted sweets at the Bellingham Farmers Market, hosted pop-up chocolate lounges, moved to yet another kitchen and scored wholesale accounts with Whole Foods and Haggen. In 2017, Christy also helped open Northwater Restaurant.
Throughout, Christy and Shannon were focused on sourcing as many ingredients as possible from local and regional vendors. Shannon said even when they were only making truffles, they got to know farmers at places such as Lynden’s Twin Brook Creamery, where they purchased cream to go inside the truffles.
“We treated sourcing with truffles and developing flavor profiles like we would with food,”
Christy said. “We started going out to the farms. What do you have? Blackberries, raspberries, blueberries? More and more and more. We had a bird’s-eye view of what was here from the beginning.”
The partnerships they formed with area farmers via Evolve Truffles came in handy when, in 2018, they were offered the space at Village Books. The duo hadn’t even been aware a cafe existed there until the elevator door opened and they encountered a kitchen and a spacious dining area looking out over the Fairhaven Village Green.
Although they’d agreed beforehand not to give the bookstore owners an answer until they’d had time to discuss the offer in private, they were still upstairs when they both replied in the affirmative.
“We were like, ‘Yes, please, take me to your leader,’” Shannon said.
Following a renovation of the space, they opened in August 2018, offering an array of beverages, baked goods, truffles (natch), daily specials, soup, seafood and meat dishes, vegetarian options, weekend brunch items and more.
The Polenta Bowl at Evolve Chocolate + Cafe is a favorite of customers. (Andy Bronson/Cascadia Daily News) A board near the small-but-mighty kitchen highlights a number of the vendors the spouses purchase goods from on a regular basis, including Birchwood Botanicals, Blanchard Mountain Farm, Cascadia Mushrooms, Grace Harbor Farms, Acme Farm Cheese, Harmony Fields, Lummi Island Wild, and Bellingham Coffee Roasters.
The daily menu is kept simple on purpose, but Christy goes all out for special events. For instance, from 4–7 p.m. on Valentine’s Day, patrons can also order a “Love is Love”
dessert tower for two — a decadent collection of bite-sized sweets, complete with a “spice of life”
float concocted of raspberry sorbet, rose petals and sparkling wine. (Advance purchase is recommended for the $50 treat.)
Evolve will also be taking part in the Feb. 11 Fairhaven Chocolate Walk (which, sadly, is sold out) and will host a Whatcom READS Book Dinner March 1; an Easter Brunch with Treat Towers April 9; a Murder Mystery Dinner April 28; a Cinco de Mayo Dinner May 5; and a Mother’s Day Brunch May 14.
Chef Christy Fox pours a glaze over a polenta dish at the small kitchen Evolve Chocolate + Cafe. “We have to be really methodical about how we use the space,” she said. (Andy Bronson/Cascadia Daily News) Although Evolve is just now returning to its pre-pandemic customer base, Shannon and Christy are focused on the future. Their 10th wedding anniversary is just around the corner, and they’re making plans to open a new full-service restaurant, Persimmon, at the Bow Sanctuary.
“We can’t do any more in this space, we’re busting out of our seams,” Shannon said.
“I wouldn’t have predicted that we would’ve done this 10 years ago,” Christy said. “I would never have seen this. But it’s been such an amazing experience.”
Shannon said without the partnerships they’ve nurtured over the years — including their own — what they’re doing now wouldn’t have been possible.
“Those relationships fed into the cafe, and then the new relationships grew,” she said.
“It was that passion and approach about being so much in love with each other, and then being in love with this new space,” Christy said of the evolution of Evolve. “Plus, I fell in love with what this region had with the ingredients and agriculture and belief system and sustainability of it all.”
Evolve Chocolate + Cafe is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday on the third floor of Village Books, 1200 11th St. Info: evolvefairhaven.com.
