Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Portland-based chocolate company, Moonstruck, announced Tuesday that it will close nine of its cafes by the end of the month.

CEO Dan Hossley says bad real estate decisions hurt their stores in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and Virginia.

Dan Hossley: “Each of these locations had a problem. I’ll give you an example, we opened a location in a mall in Detroit, Michigan, and it’s an outdoor mall. So when I first visited that site in January, it was like 10 degrees.”

He says people don’t go to an outdoor mall when it’s so cold. And in the summer, he says, temperatures reach 90 degrees with 90 percent humidity – also a time when someone might not want chocolate.

Hossley says the five remaining Moonstruck cafés in Portland will stay open.

He plans to build the internet arm of the 15-year-old company and increase business-to-business sales.