Chocolatier Turns Love Of Cooking Into Bustling Bonbon Business In Point Pleasant

POINT PLEASANT, NJ — Lauren Klein has always loved to cook, from when she was young in the kitchen with her grandmother through earning a degree in baking and pastry arts at Johnson & Wales University.

So when the coronavirus pandemic shut down restaurants in New York City in 2020, sidelining Klein from her job as a pastry chef, she found herself trying to figure out what she would do next.

Klein, the owner of Handcrafted Chocolate in Point Pleasant, did what many people did: she started her own business.

"I wanted something sustainable," said Klein, who specializes in artisan bonbons at the shop at 2804 Bridge Ave. She headed to her family's home in Freehold, where she grew up, and started doing bake sales in her mother's kitchen.

What started in her mother's kitchen has grown into a storefront business in Point Pleasant five years later, and Klein is in her element, making chocolates for every occasion.

It wasn't what she thought she'd be doing when she first started taking culinary arts classes at Freehold Boro High School, she said. Among the courses was an introduction to commercial baking.

"At first I was like I don’t have patience for this," Klein said of baking, but the class changed her perspective and her direction. After graduating from Freehold Boro in 2011 she headed to Johnson & Wales to study baking and pastry arts, and food service management. That's when she was introduced to chocolate.

At first when she came home, Klein turned her mother's kitchen into a bake sale, filling her kitchen counters with pies and cookies and selling them via social media. After several months, her mother urged her to find another place to do her work.

" 'I need you to get out of my kitchen,' my mom said," Klein said with a laugh.

She was able to connect with a local restaurant that operated during the day, Tatchen's, and worked out an arrangement to use the kitchen at night. There she focused on making hot cocoa bombs and bonbons, because chocolate was shelf-stable and easier to ship.

She had given the owner, Mike Cavanaugh, a box of her bonbons as a thank-you gift for the cooperation. He gave them a rave review.

"These are really special," Klein said he told her. "You have to keep up with this."

After testing several flavors of bonbons, she launched the business in September 2021 as an e-commerce company with 10 flavors. She chose chocolates because they are shelf-stable and easier to ship, said Klein, who lives in Brick with her fiance, Scott Friedman, who is an executive chef with Compass Group.

"I needed something that would sustain itself," she said.

Klein ultimately wanted her own storefront. That dream came true in November, when she opened Handcrafted Chocolate on Bridge Avenue, boosted in part by an appearance on the Food Network's Spring Baking Championship.

The Food Network contacted her in 2023 when one of its casting directors found her Instagram account, where her biography lists her as a pastry chef and chocolatier.

They asked Klein to apply and after a Facetime interview and her making something for the producers, she was selected to be one of the 13 bakers on the 2025 season.

Her stay was short-lived, however, as she was forced to withdraw due to illness when the show filmed in April 2024.

Klein had been selling her chocolates at pop-up events and knew she was outgrowing what she could do in the kitchen at Tatchen's. She had been looking for a space when the Food Network episode aired in March 2025. Her untimely departure prompted viewers to search for her, in part because she was the only baker on the show who shipped her product, she said. Her sales took off.

After looking at several spaces that would have required a complete makeover to become a bakery, she saw the listing for the former Country Bakery space. Another bakery had filled the space after Country Bakery closed, but that bakery was abandoned unexpectedly.

"They had left in a panic," Klein said. "There was cake in the refrigerator, dishes in the sink."

Because it was already fit out as a bakery, it limited how much she would have to spend to open the business. "I still spent a fortune," she said.

The shop, which opened in November, now offers 20 flavors of bonbons and, for Valentine's Day, four flavors in heart shapes.

The chocolates are made using ethically sourced chocolate combined with the freshest locally sourced ingredients, Klein said. She works in small batches to maintain the highest quality.

"Salted caramel is the most popular flavor," she said.

The store is open for sales Thursdays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The other days Klein is making chocolates and filling orders, whether for e-commerce or for special events.

"I get to do a lot of fun events including weddings and birthdays," she said. She also does custom work for the Asbury Ocean Club.

"Chocolate keeps things interesting," she said. "It keeps me on my toes but it’s not the stress of restaurant service every night."