Second act for Broadway music man: Hot chocolate truck in Philadelphia

If you watched a performance of Rent or Hair on Broadway or caught The Book of Mormon on the road, chances are fairly good you at least saw the top of David Truskinoff’s head.

For three decades, Truskinoff was a music director, standing at the piano, leading the orchestra. But as the New York-born, South Florida-reared Truskinoff passed 50, he really knew the score. Life in the pits had gotten old.

You try doing the same show 525,600 times.

Intrigued by chocolate — its sourcing and making — he started researching, studying, and making his own chocolate from imported beans. But not the pretty chocolate candies you’ll find in a candy store.

Truskinoff’s passion is drinking chocolate, and he’s offering made-to-order drinks out of a truck in Center City called La Chocolatera. The menu is fairly simple: an original drink made of 68 percent dark chocolate that’s only mildly sweet; a sweeter dulce made from 55 percent chocolate; and a mint variety that uses 65 percent dark chocolate, pure peppermint oil, and vanilla. Drinks are made with whole, 2 percent, or almond milk, and he also sells La Colombe coffee to create mochas, as well as pastries from High Point Bakery.

To cap off the drinks, he takes a blowtorch to toast oversize marshmallows, which float on top. A Tony touch.

In warmer weather, the product line will switch to chilled drinks, such as iced and frappes, with the same chocolate.

La Chocolatera is parked on the Arch Street side of LOVE Park from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday and from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, it’s parked in front of the Barnes Museum or the Book Corner, on 20th Street near Callowhill.

I really spent my life working in the theater, since I’m a kid. I had the bug from a young age. I went to a performing arts high school, and then I went to Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. My career started as an actor, and I moved back to New York. After about 10 years, I went more into the music side and became a music director. I loved conducting shows and working on musicals. I was very fortunate. I worked on Rent for over 10 years. I did it on the road off and on for about seven years, all over the world, literally. It was basically like playing in a garage band doing that show.

Well, it’s an extended one. Instead of a Corvette, I decided to go with chocolate.

I’ve always done things a little differently, and this had been brewing for awhile. My wife [Marcy Schlissel, an occupational therapist] was supportive. I just didn’t know what it was that I wanted to do. The way I described it to her: I kind of wanted to do something, for lack of a better word, more real. I wanted to get my hands in the dirt. I used to joke with my wife that I wanted to be a farmer, you know, like maybe I will grow potatoes. She would just crack up laughing at the thought of me getting up before the sunrise.

While I was on the road doing Book of Mormon, I was really kind of soul searching. What do I want to do next? I knew I wanted to do something else. I actually came across a big article when I was in Chicago, and it was about the industry, the cacao industry. How, unfortunately still, it’s rife with unethical and questionable practices. A lot of slave labor and child labor in these small third-world countries, and a lack of sustainability. They’re just wiping away forests. That really attracted me about it, because I’d never known that about chocolate … so that kind of piqued my interest. It just kept going around in my head. I really got into the whole idea of how chocolate is made. I think most people don’t even ever think about it or where it comes from. I think we do more about coffee now. You see pictures of Juan Valdez in the fields. Not so with chocolate. That was kind of my entrance into it. I spent the last two years, which is when we moved to Philly, making chocolate in my basement, and getting the right equipment and reading everything I can.

I always liked Philly. Part of wanting to change the career was also wanting to get out of New York. I think it gets under your skin. My wife felt similar. We wanted to get out of New York, but not too far. I have family up there and she has family in Maryland, so I’ve always loved Philly. We love hiking, and that’s why we live out in Chestnut Hill by the Wissahickon. I’ve always thought of Philly as a kinder, gentler New York. I don’t know if everybody would agree with that.

You don’t just take mixes. I import the beans from all single-source farms. I use an importer, but everything is all traceable. I know exactly where these beans are from. That was the other thing that I really dug about chocolate; it’s a lot like wine. Where it’s grown, and how, and what altitude, all of that affects the taste. Which is why originally this was going to be a lovely cafe, because I thought of [opening] a wine bar, but with drinking chocolate. I just spent a lot of time reading, tasting as much chocolate as possible. I’ve been getting small batches of beans from all over the world. And they really are all different.

It is so expensive right now out of the box. I wanted to test the idea. I want to tell people about how we make the chocolate and how chocolate is made and to explain the difference in chocolate, and to see if there is a good response to that. I don’t think I’m going to make a million bucks on a truck. But it’s to get the product out there.

It’s electric. I was looking for something kind of real groovy. I wanted to bring over something from Europe, but it was just too much of a hassle. I came across this online: a Navistar eStar. I’m really into the sustainability and that’s part of the cacao process, and so I feel like this really goes hand in hand. It helps me to walk the walk a little bit. A little bit less of a footprint even more so. It’s also a head turner, because it looks kind of like a space truck.