In some ways, the story of Richard Donnelly Chocolates is charmed.

Richard did not set out to be a chocolatier. He was interning at a legal office early on in his college career and found the people there to be overworked, unhappy, and unfulfilled. Not wanting to find himself in his mid-40s and in a similar position, he ended up taking a six-week apprenticeship in chocolate arranged through a friend. That apprenticeship was in Paris with Robert Linxe, founder of La Maison du Chocolat. Although Richard says that most of his time there was spent doing things like cleaning up, it is obvious that he learned a great deal about what goes into making a great chocolate.