Echo Park chocolate shop owner here. HI!! We've built out a fully vegan chocolate section and café, and I'd love your honest feedback!
Hi r/VeganLA! I'm Kala, owner of The Chocolate Dispensary & Tasting Room in Echo Park. I wanted to introduce us here because a lot of what we've been building is for this community.
The Chocolate Dispensary is the largest craft chocolate store in the country, with over 1,000 chocolates that are all ethically and sustainably sourced. Many of these chocolates are vegan. All dark chocolate is naturally dairy-free anyway, but plenty of "dark" chocolate sneaks in milk solids or butterfat, and labels don't always make it obvious. That’s why we built a dedicated vegan section where you don't have to squint at ingredient lists. Every bar there is plant-based, and we're happy to tell you about the makers, the cacao origins, and how each one is made. And, beyond that, we have hundreds more throughout the shop that are vegan, also, including all the bars in our “Hardcore” section (that’s 80-100% cacao)
The drinks in our cafe are also vegan using oat milk. These include a French drinking chocolate that Yelp rated #3 on their list of “10 Outrageous Gourmet Hot Chocolates 2025.” In addition to that, we have vegan hot chocolate (with vegan marshmallows!), vegan ICED hot chocolate, and a ceremonial 100% cacao drink and coffee and cacao cold brew (that’s like a chocolate tea).
Some more of what you'll find:
- Vegan bars from small-batch makers around the world
- Oat milk, coconut milk, and other dairy-free "milk" and white dchocolates and caramels for anyone who misses the creamy stuff
- Our vegan café: With rare exceptions, all of our drinks at our cafe are vegan and oat-based
- Tastings: we always have vegan samples for you to try and are happy to make substitutions!
We also private tastings and events, so if you're planning a birthday, team outing, or party with vegan guests, we can build a vegan craft chocolate tasting.
📍 1605 Grafton Street, Los Angeles—steps away from Bacetti and Canyon Coffee 😉
🕐 Our shop and café are open daily 8am-7pm (and until 8pm on Fri & Sat).
We have some of the best AC in town - trust us!
If you stop by, please say you saw this on r/VeganLA. I'd honestly love to hear what you think, and what you'd want us to carry that we don't yet. Happy to answer questions in the comments!