Photograph by Kathy De La Torre

Terry Anderson, a sales consultant at the Los Gatos Porch, prepares a gift bag of Godiva chocolate, one of the specialty food items the shop carries.

Los Gatos Porch is the place for Godiva, other food items

By Suzanne Cristallo

In 1519, Spanish adventurer Hernando Cortez discovered chocolate in Mexico. He brought it home to Spain where country folk soon accepted it greedily as a drink.

But it wasn't until 400 years later that Milton Hershey added a little condensed milk and some sugar and gave the world's masses their first milk chocolate in a bar--plain and with almonds. While Hershey always will be associated with the bar or kisses almost anyone can buy at a favorite movie house, to buy another of the company's products, Godiva chocolates, almost requires permission and certainly lots of money.

"Godiva costs a dollar a bite," quips Larry Arzie, who with partner David Stonesifer owns Los Gatos Porch where the pedigreed chocolates are sold. "But it's worth it."

Their store on N. Santa Cruz Avenue in Los Gatos caters selectively to folks eager to create the illusion of what Arzie calls a "laid-back lifestyle" by indulging in the fine linens, china and unique furnishings the store carries. Customers also come in to partake of an "assortment of sinful things," namely, Godiva chocolates, some jalapeño peanuts laced with powdered sugar from North Carolina ($6 a can) and Coons Candy from Ohio.

"They are good regional products," says Arzie of the latter two products. He found them, as he has other previously stocked items in the store, while waiting in international airports.

The store carries two or three food items at a time, always including chocolate and candy. "They were a favorite growing up," he notes. "My family is Basque who we feel invented chocolate." It's the drink of choice in Spain where Arzie's grandparents were born and where "you sit for hours and stir [the chocolate] to just the right consistency."

With Mothers Day next Sunday, the Porch is carrying, at $18 each, half-pound boxes of assorted Godiva chocolates. They come in the familiar gold boxes and are festooned with fanciful ribbons to please Mom.

Arzie says they have been criticized for carrying the brand, because it's too commercial. But he reasons that the company would have gone to Macy's otherwise, so offering it here keeps the business in town. Besides, "It has image," he says. "People know how much it costs, and it can't be bought cheaper on the Internet."

Long-time Los Gatos residents, Arzie, 56, and Stonesifer, 57, met in the early '60s while both were getting their degrees in art at San Jose State University. "We couldn't afford student housing, so we bought a house in Los Gatos for $9,000. In those days, Los Gatos was so poor, only the retired lived here," Arzie recalls, chuckling over the ironic turn the real estate market has taken today. "We were so young, our parents had to sign for us [to complete the deal]. Then we had a rude awakening when the first tax bill came due--$90. We had to sell our sofa to pay it."

Arzie and Stonesifer bought the Porch in 1970, after several years of working for Andreson's Kitchens in Oakland and Gumps in San Francisco. They called it the Los Gatos National Porch in its first location behind the Opera House.

"No one could afford to decorate, so we opened up the first plant shop, just as 'fern bars' were opening all over." The pair pioneered the movement to house plants nationally. The philosophy was, anyone could afford a $5 plant to decorate a corner. They sold ficus trees "by the millions."

They close on Sundays to avoid out-of-towners and keep their front doors shut on the days they are open, hoping to keep the "coffee klatchers" from wandering through.

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Los Gatos Porch, 32 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos. Open Tues.-Sat., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 408.354.5470.

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