Tonight, the eve of Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th U.S. president, hundreds of partygoers will gather at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington to celebrate the role of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the historic election.
President-elect Obama may not be there -- the organizers of the Pearl Presidential Inaugural Gala are still hoping for a surprise appearance at the unofficial ball -- but 1,500 chocolate-dipped fortune cookies from a Southern California company will be making a star turn.
It's not the biggest order ever for Chocolate Fortunes of North Hollywood, but it's easily the most momentous for owners Marty and Pam Levy, who started the company 22 years ago out of sublet restaurant space.
One day last week, the pair sifted through piles of order slips that illustrate their firm's growth.
"We didn't think this would happen," Marty said, eyeing the paperwork.
The Levys, both actors, never guessed they'd be waking up at 6:30 a.m. to sell cookies. That's when they first check orders from their e-mail and voice mail with requests coming from all 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Canada and China.
Marty said the recent layoffs, credit crunch and mortgage crisis have hurt sales, which the private company doesn't disclose. But orders such as the one from the Pearl Presidential Inaugural Gala show how Chocolate Fortunes has managed to increase business over the years with help from the Internet.
In 2004, the company bought the www.chocolate fortunes.com domain name, enabling customers from anywhere in the world to place orders at any time. No longer were local businesses, weddings and events the only places for the Levy's hand-dipped cookies.
Now they're shipping to people such as Trisha Neff, a communications coordinator for Viktor Incentives & Meetings, which arranges employee reward programs for corporations in Traverse City, Mich. A recent Google search brought Neff to the website, where she ordered 1,200 cookies for an event celebrating the Chinese New Year on Jan. 26.
"Their website was the best," Neff said. "When I sent an inquiry, their response was the best."
That included a willingness to print six different fortunes and split the 1,200 cookies evenly among white chocolate, dark chocolate and butterscotch.
