Longtime Beaufort confectioner has been open since 1980
By Delayna Earley
The Island News
After 45 years of feeding Beaufort’s sweet tooth, The Chocolate Tree will be closing their doors indefinitely.
A frenzy of chocolate loving fans descended upon the store over the long Memorial Day weekend after news that they would be closing the store on May 30 was shared online.
Selling all their sweets for 50% off, the store buzzed with those customers who wanted to get a taste of the house-made chocolate treats one last time before they close on Friday.
Where it began
Pat Green opened The Chocolate Tree in downtown Beaufort in 1980, a continuation of what was always a hobby for her.
Green had been making chocolates and candies for friends and family for years before she decided to open her first storefront.
At the time, there was not a lot of confidence from some in the community in the success of her business.
“Most of the founding fathers here gave us three months,” Green said. “I said, you don’t say that to a redheaded Irish girl.”
Green said that in the early 1980s, Beaufort was not like it is now and it was not as built up as the Beaufort of today.
“1980 – that was even before Walmart,” Green said.
Green said the seed for the business was planted after she made candy for her children’s teachers at Christmastime and the at the next PTO meeting, she was stopped by many there who were requesting for her to teach them how to do it.
At first, she started teaching wives groups from the bases and ladies’ groups from around Beaufort to get the “ball rolling”.
The first store location was on West Street in downtown Beaufort where Green offered chocolate and candy making classes and sold sweets from their one candy case that her husband made for her.
She quickly realized that while the classes did draw people to their store, the part of the business that was the biggest draw was the candy case, which featured the confections that those attending the classes could learn how to make.
“People kept coming in and buying [the sweets],” said Green. “I was like, people, that’s not what we’re doing.”
Their first big test was Easter of that year when they realized that they could not make enough chocolate for the demand which led to them expanding their business to a separate building nearby where they could house equipment to expedite the process.
“We had a little building behind us and we would make candy in there and then run across the drive-thru of the bank that used to be there,” Green said. “And on a Friday, that was pretty hazardous.”
Eventually, Green was able to move her business into its current location on Carteret Street which offered them more room.
Life is like a box of chocolates
The Beaufort chocolate store is no stranger to celebrities stopping in to sample their chocolates, and in the 1990s, The Chocolate Tree was one of the Beaufort businesses that got to grace the silver screen when the movie Forrest Gump was filmed here in the Lowcountry.
Academy Award winning producer Wendy Finerman, who was one of the producers on the iconic movie, reached out to Green to find out if she could make the letters to spell the words “Forrest Gump” out of chocolate and send them to people all over the country.
“I had no idea what that was, I didn’t realize it was a person,” Green said. “I said, well yeah, we could definitely do that. The problem would be finding a box long enough to fit all those letters in.”
From there, Finerman provided her with a credit card and a list of addresses for her to send the chocolates to as a promotion for the movie.
That was her first interaction with anyone from the movie.
From there, Green said that she would send boxes of chocolates “here, there and everywhere.”
Actress Sally Field, who plays Forrest Gump’s mother in the movie, had them deliver chocolate to her a couple of times.
In the movie, the main character can be seen waiting for the bus – filmed in nearby Savannah, Ga. – while holding a box of chocolates and says one of the most famous lines of the movie, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”
Green said that the production team was not able to use one of their boxes to hold the chocolate since The Chocolate Tree did not exist during the time period of the scene and movie, but the chocolate inside of the box was all from the Beaufort store.
Another famous fan of the chocolates is actress and singer Barbara Streisand.
Streisand stayed in the house located behind The Chocolate Tree’s Carteret Street location while she was in town in the early 1990s filming the movie adaption of “The Prince of Tides” based on the novel of the same name written by another Beaufort legend, Pat Conroy.
Green was dipping chocolates when the store received a phone call from Streisand thanking her and the store’s staff for all the chocolate that she enjoyed, although Green had to be relayed the message from a staff member.
“Normally, any of the advertisers or people wanting handouts or goodies, you know prizes or whatever, they would interrupt me, but they did not for Barbara Streisand,” said Green.
Is this the end?
Pat Green retired from the business a few years ago, and her son Gene and Pat’s younger sister, Joy King, took over ownership of the business.
Gene Green sold his part of the business to his aunt and then she died in late 2024.
The COVID-19 pandemic also took its toll on the business, causing them to have to stop doing popular events such as the All-You-Can-Eat Chocolate Night, which successfully brought hundreds of chocolate lovers into the store for several hours to eat as much chocolate as their stomachs could handle while learning how to make some of the confections that the store was known for outside of chocolate.
After King’s death, the business went to her sons, and her son Cliff King took over.
Cliff King, who was not available for comment, is the current owner of the business and was the decider in closing the store according to Pat Green and her son Tim Green.
After news broke that the store would be closing their doors on May 30, rumors began to spread on social media stating that Pat Green and her son Tim Green would be coming back to take over the business after closing The Chocolate Tree for a month for renovations and reorganizing inventory.
While both Pat and Tim Green expressed their wish for the store not to close, there are no plans currently in the works for them to take over the business according to interviews that they both did with The Island News on Monday, May 26.
That said, while they both said that there are not currently plans to reopen the business, never say never.
“This has all been so hard,” Pat Green said. “The business is like my baby.”
Pat Green said that her phone has been blowing up with texts and calls since the news hit social media over the weekend, and she wanted people to know that she appreciates their sadness because she is sad, too.
On social media, customers of the store have been posting about their sadness regarding the store closing because of how integrated the sweets shop is into the culture of downtown Beaufort.
Posts reminiscing about the All-You-Can-Eat Chocolate Night, the chocolate covered strawberries featuring strawberries from Dempsey Farms on St. Helena Island, the caramel apples in the fall and the chocolatier classes that the store used to offer can be found in the comments section of posts made by The Island News and other local news organizations.
“If there is any way we can reopen, we will try,” Pat Green said. “But it’s unknown at this point.”
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
