Moonstruck Chocolate Company, a national purveyor of cute and tasty chocolate treats, is closing its Chicago location today. Crain's Chicago Business reports that the company simply couldn’t cope with competition from the variety of both coffee shops and chocolatiers in the neighborhood, most notably Vosges and Ethels. [Ed note: Recall Chicagoist's Chocolate Crawl of '05.] Their chocolates had received an incredible amount of press (including being picked by Oprah as one of her "favorite things") but this apparently didn't generate enough walk-in business.

This is depressing news for us, as we’d take Moonstruck over Ethel's any day of the week. We loved Moonstruck for their comfy chairs, tasty hot chocolate drinks and most especially for their cute seasonal chocolates. Complaints about high prices were sometimes justified, but their products were unusual enough that we still stopped in for treats regularly. We especially loved their “Cream Cones” and “Cupcake Truffles” – perfect miniature cupcakes in flavors like Sour Cream Fudge and Strawberry Cheesecake.

Moonstruck chocolates can still be found online here.