While they had always shared a love for the sweeter side of life, it wasn't until the birth of their son, Atlas, in January this year did the husband and wife team decide to take a leap of faith and switch out their jobs for Coco Mudgee.

"We wanted a lifestyle change. Tim was working in the mines here which was great but we just never saw each other. Having Atlas, it was kind of like 'what do we want to do?'," Ms Leventis said.

"I grew up with my mum having a very community-based shop in Bowral, we want Atlas to grow up like that and have a place where everyone knows us.

"Looking at everyone creating businesses through COVID, I got really inspired and thought 'we can do this, let's do it'.

"I started to make things happen like the logo and business name, but we really needed a premises which was quite hard to find because it's not like shops on the main street come up all the time.

"I think this building came up and the next day we signed the lease, I was onto it straight away because we had been waiting for a couple of months. It fast tracked from there."

Throughout the nearly 12 month-long journey that saw Coco Mudgee's doors open on December 9, the duo were well supported, even from Switzerland, with family and friends jumping on board to make this "big family project" come to life.

"It hasn't just been us, there's been a lot of people behind the scenes," Ms Leventis said.

"My sister, who lives in Switzerland, is a graphic and web designer so she did a lot of the work on the Instagram and logo. She also did our loyalty cards and the wrapping paper.

"One of Tim's friends, Mitch, built the counter which was just incredible. He did the floor and all of the shelves too.

"Honestly, we probably couldn't have done it without all of them," Mr Trethowan said.

With a concept to exclusively offer sustainably made Australian products, by supporting the store, customers are also supporting small businesses from all corners of the country, including Pebbly Path from Mudgee.

"The whole concept of the store is to support the sustainable process of chocolate making and to support local and small businesses. Everyone in the shop are all Australian small business makers," Ms Leventis said.

Not only do the pair sell chocolate made by others including Jasper and Myrtle, Sweet Pea & Poppy, and Two Little Tarts to name a few, but they also create three bars of their own that have proved to be popular.

"I made quite a few hampers before we opened and within three days, all the chocolate ones were gone. We had 350 of our bars, I thought that would definitely be enough to get us through to January and they're almost all gone," Ms Leventis said.

"We underestimated that one a little bit," Mr Trethowan laughed.

The pair were "blown away" by the amount of support their venture had garnered and said it felt like a form of confirmation.

"To be honest, I didn't think that many people were following our progress so when lots of people came in, I was like 'wow'. They're kind of on the journey with us, it's great to have so much support from the community," Mr Trethowan said.

There are no signs that Coco Mudgee's popularity will be slowing down anytime soon with the couple working behind the scenes to offer more in 2022.

"We definitely have a lot of plans brewing for next year," Ms Leventis said.

"We plan to redo our packaging, make a few other types of chocolate, we've got more Australian chocolate makers on board for next year, and we're also going to be doing some private tastings and things like that."

To keep to date with Coco Mudgee, follow their Instagram and Facebook pages.

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