Hooker's Sweet Treats Hoping to Launch Tendernob Shop Next Month

C Magazine

David "Hooker" Williams.

​Thank Trader Joe's for giving San Francisco one of its most distinctive candies. No, we're not talking about the Lumpy Bumpy Bar you might've scored from TJ's on Ninth, but about the chocolate-covered salted caramels that gave David "Hooker" Williams his taste of inspiration.

Williams, founder of Hooker's Sweet Treats, makes the sea-salted chocolate-covered caramels we recently highlighted as a SFoodie's 92. As the S.F. confectioner gets ready to open his first retail shop and candy kitchen in the Tendernob (if things go well, it should open in early May), the Louisiana-born graphic designer spoke to us about what first got him interested in candy.

Those caramels, for instance ― covered with 72 percent bittersweet chocolate, sprinkled with Welsh sea salt smoked over smoldering oak ― grew out of an off-season craving. Williams loved Trader Joe's salted chocolate caramels, but they showed up in stores only around the holidays, and this was summer. "I thought, 'Where am I going to get some of these?'" Williams says. So he made his own, refining the recipe to get it right. This was in 2008, just about the time Williams' partner Rod Hipskind (along with business partner Kelly Ishikawa) were opening The Perish Trust, the vintage home and collectible shop on Divis.

John Birdsall

Hooker's sea-salted chocolate-covered caramels.

​"I made a ton of them for the opening party, without any intent to sell them after that," Williams says. "But everyone that was there fell in love with them, and the big question of the night was how I could make these to sell." Through word of mouth, Williams ended up selling his caramels at Miette and the fancy boutique Carrots, The Perish Trust and Sightglass, too (Hooker's candies are no longer available at the first two).

As for the approximately 700-square-foot shop emerging at 442 Hyde (former home of Chez Momo café), Williams says it'll give him a chance to make other things besides candies. The shop will feature a community table and window bar, with a small work space. Williams says he'll offer caramel corn and other sweet-salty things, even do a bit of baking ― bread pudding, say, which he thinks should be perfect for the space. "Being from New Orleans, it'll all have that sort of flavor," he says.

Oh, and the nickname "Hooker"? It's a name friends gave him years ago, after Williams himself took to calling his buddies "hooker." "I'd be like, "Hey, hooker,' to my friends. After a while, I just became Hooker Dave.'"

Opening later this spring:
Hooker's Sweet Treats 442 Hyde (at O'Farrell)