La Femme Fatale + has launched their website ahead of their arrival of new boutique this fall in Sunnyside Mall. The women’s plus-size clothier will have a wide selection of garments once the store opens but in the meantime they will be selling their body positive t-shirts at the North by North Market on Gottingen Street this Friday night,

International shoe retailer Sketchers will be opening a store on the upper level Halifax Shopping centre later this year

Raffi’s Kitchen in Sackville closed for Easter weekend and just never reopened. Now there are signs in the window saying there will be soon the arrival of Shawarma King.



Station 1 Lebanese Kitchen is now open in its new home on Tacoma Drive after moving from its previous spot on Main Street by Forest Hills earlier this year.

It was a quicker renovation than I had heard, Lush in Mic Mac Mall is back open after a speedy makeover



The Cows Ice Cream shed outside of BoomBurger at Larry Uteck is going to start scooping on July 11

Shoe retailer SoftMoc is building a significantly larger store on the second floor of Halifax Shopping Centre. This follows SoftMoc also building a much larger store in Mic Mac Mall a few months ago.





Kent Building Supplies will be opening their new Lower Sackville story on Saturday, conveniently located beside their current long time store on the corner of Sackville Drive and the Beaverbank Connector. The old store will then be demolished to provide a better parking layout for the property.

Stan Mozoluk and Cecile Klawatsch have come from Paris to Halifax and have opened a chocolate shop in the north end of the city.

In 2016, when the couple first explored the Maritimes while connecting with food producers, they took a crash course in what the Maritimes has to offer. Both are passionate about food. Mozoluk is a trained chocolatier and Klawatsch has a background in information technology and is a passionate baker and a former food blogger.

“We wanted nature, we wanted freedom and here is a beautiful place for creating new stuff,” said Klawatsch. That is where the name of their business — Chocolate Hackers — comes from. It is about manipulating the properties of the cacao beans, seeing what they can do coax the maximum potential to create their chocolate.

In 2017 they started their business — and their family when they had twins — in their Hydrostone home. They initially sold their creations at craft and trade shows and wholesale to boutique shops. Now they have opened their retail space and kitchen at 3555 Robie St., just off Lady Hammond Road behind Cousins.

They make their chocolate from scratch from cocoa beans they source primarily from Madagascar. They are quick to point out that every bean is different. Much like apples or peaches, there are lots of different beans and it is about choosing the right types.

Besides making chocolate — from milk chocolate to 100 per cent cacao — they are also making creative items like their rainbow of mini bars that get their colours from natural sources like blueberry, ginger, raspberry and matcha green tea. For a competition, they also have one they created that they described as extremely spicy.

The shop also has delights for those who visit, like marshmallows made on site. The marshmallows can be as is, flavoured with Propeller IPA beer or dipped in a variety of chocolate to create marshmallow lollipops. They also have a selection of cookies they make daily and they have gone the next step and created ice cream sandwiches.

They are sharing how it is all made in an open source environment. They will be having classes, from tastings to learning how to make the chocolate yourself, straight from the bean. They are holding a class for children on July 13, where kids can simply customize their own name in chocolate on cookies.

Mozoluk and Klawatsch used the word passionate when they spoke about their business and product, but that is apparent in their creations. They are open Tuesday to Saturday from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

A new southern style BBQ joint has opened in Truro, you can find Old Road BBQ on Industrial Avenue



It’s that time of year where strawberries are ready for harvest and that also marks the return of many fruit and vegetable stands to the roadside of fruit and vegetable stands.

VACATION ALERT:

After over five continuous years of producing a weekly update, I’m taking a break. My wife and I are going on a 4000 plus kilometre road trip, visiting many of the places we lived and frequently vacationed before we met. We are dubbing The Places That Made Us tour and will have stops in Montreal, Ottawa, Sudbury, Guelph, Toronto, Boston and Maine and locales in between. I will still be keeping an eye on home but I won’t be publishing a full update again until the 21st.