Like the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs, the pandemic nearly brought an end not only to South Bend Chocolate Company, but to owner Mark Tarner’s plans to create a dinosaur museum.
But help from federal, state and local governments has saved the plans.
Tarner, who hunts dinosaur artifacts in his free time, is building the Indiana Dinosaur Museum on Lincolnway West, just west of the U.S. 31 bypass. The site also will house his chocolate production facility, another Public House bar and restaurant, a farm experience and more tourist attractions.
On Monday the South Bend Common Council will consider the chocolatier’s request to extend a property tax break it granted in 2019. Tarner says the pandemic has delayed the project. With so much of his sales in places that shut down during the pandemic – stores, airports, hospitals – Tarner says he and his wife had to deplete their savings to keep the company going, and they were on the verge of bankruptcy.
"It's really been a journey but I think all great things have their trials and troubles," Tarner says. "We're getting there. It's going to be great for South Bend and great for the state of Indiana. Not only our company survived, but the project is going to kind of, I hope, change the West Side, survived as well."
Tarner says he plans to open the new complex in late April or early May.
