Call Center Company in Anchorage, AK

Like many trends, it started on TikTok.

In December 2023, a Dubai food influencer posted a video of herself audibly biting into a chocolate bar, gobs of creamy pistachio butter that filled the bar’s interior bubbling to the surface. The crunch, which comes from the bar’s shredded phyllo dough innards, can be heard with every bite. The video went viral, mounting a movement in the chocolatier industry that has since spread globally.

About 6,000 miles and a year-and-a-half later, the internet’s so-called “Dubai chocolate” craze has arrived in Alaska.

Based on demand from their customers and a trend too big to ignore, Anchorage chocolatiers and dessert shops have begun offering the trendy new chocolate. According to sales averages from five local creators and suppliers, Alaskans are buying anywhere between 520 and 760 Dubai chocolate bars from them a week. Grocers, too, have attested to a huge uptick in popularity for the ingredients, painting a picture of a fanbase that’s harder to count: local bakers.

“It’s funny, because it’s not a new trend,” said Anchorage chocolatier and Alaska Wild Berry Products owner Dawee Lor. In an industrial kitchen at the back of her Midtown candy shop, she and her team have been creating Dubai bars almost as fast as they are selling them. “But I feel like Alaska is always behind on the trend.”

The original bar, the “CAN’T GET KNAFEH OF IT,” was created by Dubai-based Sarah Hamouda to satisfy a pregnancy craving. It’s since inspired copycat chocolate bars around the world, from big-time chocolate makers, including Lindt, to smaller spinoffs, including from a five-star German hotel that sold a limited number of Dubai bars for $72 apiece.

On a recent morning, Lor wore latex gloves and a hair net, and began what would be an all-day process of creating 72 Dubai chocolate bars. She started selling versions of Dubai chocolate last October. Demand has especially picked up in the last few months.

“This all started because my niece was like, ‘Why don’t you make the Dubai bar?’ And I was like, ‘What is the Dubai bar?‘” Lor said as she waited for an outer shell of chocolate to set so she could add a filling of pistachio cream, freshly chopped pistachios and a shredded phyllo dough called kadayif (also spelled kataifi or kadaifi) browned in butter. Each bar is decorated with gold and green streaks of edible cocoa butter — a signature of the original bar’s design. Lor originally made the desserts as bonbons, but switched her approach to bars based on demand. She ordered 12 molds, which make three chocolate bars each, and called it sufficient.

“Now, it’s just kind of gangbusters,” Lor said.

Alaska Wild Berry Products makes batches of 72 Dubai bars at least a few days a week and sells 200 to 300 in the same time period, Lor said.

Each bar weighs half a pound, can be broken into 10 squares and costs $35. Lor said the high price comes from the time-consuming nature of individually molding, filling and shelling the bars.

Despite the price tag, local customers are selling out Alaska Wild Berry’s supply within “hours” each time the store posts about a fresh batch on Instagram, Lor said.

“This is kind of like the biggest thing to hit the chocolate industry that I’ve ever seen,” said Lor, who first started as a retail staff member in high school 21 years ago. “Everybody’s jumping on the Dubai train right now.”

Other local dessert and chocolate shops have more recently made space for the trend on their menus.

“Originally, we had no plan to make this,” said chocolatier Ingrid Shim of Aurora Chocolates. Her chocolate shop has two locations, on Dimond Boulevard and within the Hotel Captain Cook. “But a lot of customers called for the Dubai chocolate.”

Shim said she began to make good on their requests only a month ago, after the pistachio cream she ordered from Amazon was finally delivered. Since then, Shim has sold out her weekly inventory — 50 to 90 individual-style Dubai chocolates — within days of making them, she said.

Snowy Berry Cafe in the Midtown Mall, a family-run business, began including a variety of Dubai chocolate-inspired desserts on their menu beginning last fall, said Amanda Solis, who owns the shop with her husband.

She started with another viral spinoff trend: the Dubai strawberry cup, or fresh-sliced strawberries drizzled in chocolate and topped with kadayif. Her shop only takes preorders for their smaller, $16 Dubai chocolate bars and bonbons. She said they sell 100 to 150 bars a week, in addition to 500 strawberry cups.

It’s not just brick-and-mortar shops that are taking orders. In January, Anchorage resident Alaa Sheikh started posting her Dubai chocolate bars and other creations for sale on Facebook, at the encouragement of friends and family who had tried them.

Since she works full time, she collects preorders on her business Facebook page, called Desert Jewel Alaska, and fulfills them every Sunday.

“It’s getting even busier as the weeks go by,” Sheikh said. She’s selling 150 to 200 chocolate bars every weekend at $28 a pop. She also makes strawberry Dubai cups, Dubai brownies and a cookie butter version of the Dubai bar. “I only take a limited amount of orders, because not trying to kill myself making them.”

Local foodies and bakers have peppered Anchorage Facebook groups with questions on topics ranging from sourcing ingredients to securing Dubai chocolates locally. They want to know: What is it? And then, quickly: Where can I find it?

Last September, Anchorage resident Verena Fabrick was among the first to post in the popular local Facebook group “Find Olive The Things” a different kind of question. She wanted to know where she could find certain ingredients, including pistachio cream and kadayif. Shops in Anchorage weren’t yet making the bar.

“My thing is, if I can’t buy it at a store, then I’ll make it myself,” Fabrick said. She sent her husband on what ended up being an “all day fiasco” to source the ingredients. They purchased the shredded phyllo dough from a commercial restaurant supply store on Cordova Street and bought the pistachio cream from a local on Facebook who responded to her post seeking help finding it.

Since, local bakers have had better luck by scouring grocery stores geared toward an international audience.

Felicia Anderson, who owns Alaska International Groceries in Midtown, said she can tell if a customer is making Dubai chocolates based on what they’re buying.

On a recent weekday, her freezer supply of boxed kadayif was dwindling, and she’d sold her last jar of pistachio cream that morning.

Anderson said she sees three types of customers who subscribe to the craze: intrigued bakers, hopeful entrepreneurs and restaurateurs.

“Traditionally, it’s my Middle Easterners that would typically buy (kadayif) because that’s one of their dessert items,” Anderson said. Now? It’s everyone, and “it’s daily.”

Another local supplier of kadayif sits in a nondescript warehouse building in Midtown: Teddy’s Tasty Meats. Staff there have been seeing the same rush on kadayif they’ve come to associate with the holidays.

“I was telling my boss, like ‘Jeez, it’s like Christmas,’ ” said employee Emily Duta this week.

On the east side of town, Anchorage Halal Market is seeing the same.

Owner Mustafa Warsame says customers have been regularly asking after both the chocolate and its ingredients. He has both: a Feritio Dubai chocolate bar he says is flying off the counter — 20 or more a week — for $20 a bar, and jars of pistachio cream and boxes of shredded phyllo dough.

Other local businesses have taken the craze and adapted it to the food they already offered. Sip Cafe started making chocolate and pistachio madeleine cookies two weeks ago, manager Katie Kwart said.

Jason’s Donuts in Eagle River introduced a Dubai donut the size of a child’s head, similar to the rest of their donuts. Baker Ucinia Carlson said they sell them only on weekends, since they’re more labor-intensive to make. They make 68 Dubai donuts priced at $9 each every Saturday and Sunday and sell out within two hours, she said. The line sometimes wraps out the door and around the shopping center parking lot.

“Even when the trend kind of dies down, we’ll continue to make (Dubai donuts), because I know a lot of people have strayed from coming through because they see the line,” Carlson said.

So what does hearty participation in a global trend have to say about Alaskans? It may be deeper than just their affinity for chocolate.

“I think Alaskans don’t want to be left out,” said Zeynep Kilic, a retired sociology professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She has studied food through the question of belonging and also owns the East Anchorage restaurant Turkish Delight.

“I was surprised by everything from the name to its ingredients,” Kilic said. “You know, kadayif is not a well-known thing. Pistachio cream is not a beloved thing. If anything, I would think maybe people would want to do it with peanut butter in the U.S. But I think Alaskans also surprise you, more often than not, in terms of being so open to various ethnic and culturally distinct foods.”

On a recent Wednesday, customer Lalaine Baguio exited Alaska Wild Berry Products into the evening sunlight. In her hand was a tiny brown bag holding a precious item. She’d come straight from work seeing a friend post about the shop’s fresh chocolate bar supply.

“Thirty-five dollars is a lot for chocolate,” Baguio said. “But I was curious.”

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Alaska Farm Supply is a go-to spot for farmers in the Matanuska Susitna Borough. At the shop yard in Palmer, bags of animal feed tower like mini skyscrapers.

“Each pallet is one ton,” said owner Todd Bagetis while pointing to the top of a tower of animal feed.

The closest active volcano to Anchorage, Mount Spurr, could erupt within weeks or months, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Bagetis said many of his customers are stocking up on supplies to prepare for a possible Spurr eruption in the coming weeks or months.

Right now, he said the company has at least two times more feed in stock than normal.

“Where somebody would come in and they would get a bag or two, they're coming in and getting 10 or 15 a week,” Bagetis said. “If something happens, it'll hold them off. They’ll have enough feed to get by.”

Mount Spurr is located about 80 miles from Anchorage. The volcano’s color code switched to yellow, or “advisory status” in March and many local businesses started preparing by stocking up on essential supplies. Southcentral business owners say that being locally owned helps them respond to customer needs more effectively.

“A lot of people are rushing around to try to get temporary shelters and temporary places where they can filter the air, such as garages, barns,” Bagetis said.

That potential risk has caused customers of AK Bark, a pet store in Anchorage, to start preparing, too.

Mark Robokoff, the store’s owner, said there was a huge surge in demand for protective gear for dogs after the alert level changed. The hot ticket items include booties, full body rain coats and dog goggles– or doggles.

There’s one item though that’s flying off the shelves: dog masks. They look similar to the ones humans wear and cost $6.95. The store is only selling masks through pre-order and there’s a list of customers waiting for the next delivery.

“We have now pre-sold over 1,000 of those dog masks,” he said. “I immediately got online and found some masks that were available.”

AK Bark wasn’t selling dog masks before the volcano’s status switched to advisory, but the other items are carried year-round. It can be tough to find ash-preparedness gear at big-box pet stores, Robokoff said.

The last few weeks have been extremely busy, Robokoff said, but he’s happy to see his customers preparing to protect their dogs.

Robokoff said being an Alaskan-owned business helps him understand and respond to his customers’ preparation needs.

“This is the time for small businesses,” Robokoff said. “We were already kind of positioned well to address this crisis, but because we are a locally owned business, because we're so locally focused, we were able to pivot and react to these local circumstances very quickly.”

Both Robokoff and Begetis from AK Farm Supply say they’re preparing for an ashfall to impact merchandise shipment. Port officials say an eruption could cause minor maritime delays, but will “probably be measured in hours, not days or weeks.” State officials expect parts of Southcentral could see up to a quarter-inch of ash if Spurr erupts.

The last time Spurr erupted was in 1992. The city was blanketed in about an eighth of an inch of ash, shutting down the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport for 20 hours.

If Spurr’s color code changes to orange or “watch” status, Alaska Industrial Hardware (AIH) president and CEO Terry Shurtleff thinks stores like his will get busier.

“In our experience, only about 10% or at the very most, 20% of people will act before the incident,” he said. “Then the other 80% are in a rush.”

Like AK Bark, masks have been selling quickly at the AIH in south Anchorage, but these ones are for humans.

AIH is asking employees to have preparedness plans so they can come to work. Shurtleff said it’s important the business stays open during an eruption so they can get customers essential supplies.

“We're prepared to serve Alaska when Alaska needs it,” Shurtleff said. “That’s our culture. I like to think that it's Alaska culture, really.”

If Spurr erupts, Shurtleff said he expects the business would sell more brooms and industrial sweepers because they’re recommended for ash cleanup.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the location of AK Farm Supply. The store is in Palmer, not Wasilla.

The oldest Carrs grocery store, a landmark near downtown Anchorage since the 1950s, will shut its doors in the coming weeks, a Carrs-Safeway official confirmed Tuesday.

The planned closure of the store and pharmacy at 1340 Gambell St. will leave a hole in the neighborhood of Fairview as community advocates are trying to revitalize the area, said James Thornton, president of the Fairview Community Council.

The shutdown also raises questions about access to a grocery store and pharmacy for a neighborhood where many people walk and don’t own vehicles, he said. Fairview, a diverse neighborhood home to many low-income residents, was once the center of the Black community in Anchorage.

“It’s devastating,” Thornton said. “The neighborhood needs this primary source of food, especially those that don’t have vehicles. It’s their only way to get food and medicine in a lot of cases.”

“It’s a very sad day,” said Richard Watts Jr., who began his decades-long career at Carrs working at the Gambell store in 1964 as a box boy — a bagger today — and later managed the store.

The Gambell store is unique among other Carrs stores in Anchorage because it’s so central to the people in the Fairview neighborhood, he said.

“The Carrs-Safeway on Gambell is the heartbeat of Fairview, so it’s almost like cutting the heart out of the community,” Watts said. “I just hope another store opens there after it closes.”

The Gambell location will close by May 10, said Sara Osborne, a Carrs-Safeway spokeswoman, in an email.

The 35 people employed by the store will have the option to transfer to surrounding stores, she said.

The store’s pharmacy will close on the same date as the overall operation, Osborne said.

The pharmacists and prescriptions at the Gambell Carrs will transfer to the Carrs pharmacy in the Midtown Mall at 2920 Seward Highway, Osborne said.

“Carrs-Safeway has been proudly serving Anchorage for decades, and the decision to close this store isn’t one we made lightly,” Osborne said.

“With our focus on growth, we continuously evaluate the performance of our stores, and occasionally it’s necessary to close locations that are not growing and are perpetually unable to meet financial expectations,” she said.

The Carrs-Safeway supermarket chain, a subsidiary of Albertsons, will continue to operate eight stores in Anchorage, Osborne said.

Workers at the store Tuesday said they could not comment on the planned closure.

Shoppers expressed shock and dismay.

Some said they drive in from other areas of Anchorage in part because they love shopping there, even though it has a reputation for attracting sometimes unsavory loiterers outside its doors.

They said the store is well-stocked with groceries compared to other Carrs locations, in part because it seems to draw fewer shoppers. They also praised the store’s employees for their longevity and often knowing customers by name.

“I just heard and it’s like, ‘What? Oh no!‘” said shopper Christina Anowlic of the closure, her arms full of fruits, vegetables and other items.

She said she grew up shopping at the store in the 1980s with her parents. She still returns to shop there occasionally, also from Government Hill where she lives.

“It’s kind of sad,” she said.

The Carrs store at Gambell opened in the 1950s.

It was located near the original Carrs that was opened by Laurence John “Larry” Carr in a Quonset hut in 1950, at 14th Avenue and Gambell Street.

Within a couple of years, Carr moved the store to the current location at 13th and Gambell. The building suffered a fire and was rebuilt, Watts said. The current 30,000-square-foot building was constructed in 1957, Anchorage municipal records show. With the land it sits on, it’s appraised by the municipality at $3.1 million.

When the store hired Watts in 1964, he became the first Black person to work in retail in Anchorage, he said. He was hired at the store after he and others, including his late parents, picketed the Carrs for not hiring Black people in public-facing positions, at protests organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Watts said his hiring opened the door for “other people of color” to be hired at other Anchorage stores.

The Carrs at Gambell for many years served as the administrative headquarters for the Carrs chain as it began to grow around the state, said Watts. He moved up through the ranks at Carrs to eventually become one of two district operation managers in Alaska, overseeing 15 stores. He retired in 2017 at the age of 70.

A blow to the store came in 2019, when Carrs opened in a new spot at the Midtown Mall, after closing at a different spot in the mall four years earlier, Watts said.

“That probably drew some customers from the Carrs on Gambell, and added to the red ink that was already there,” Watts said.

Thornton, with the Fairview Community Council, said he hopes the closure can somehow be averted.

“We’re going to do everything we can to fight this, because I don’t know how Fairview continues on without our Carrs store,” he said. “There’s a stigma associated with the store, but it’s the original Carrs store in Anchorage and a lot of people love it. And the people that run it have done a great job supporting the community over the years.”

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THIS WEEK IN ALASKA ANCHORAGE GYMNASTICS ...

Women's Collegiate Gymnastics National Invitational Championships Gold Dome – Shreveport, La. Alaska Anchorage, Bridgeport, Centenary, Greenville, Southeast Missouri, Southern Connecticut State, West Chester, Texas Woman's

Friday, Apr. 11 – Team Semifinals 11 am ADT – Session 1 (Bridgeport, Greenville, SEMO, SCSU) 4 pm ADT – Session 2 (UAA, Centenary, West Chester, TWU) Saturday, Apr. 12 – Team Finals 4 pm ADT – First- and second-place teams from Friday Sunday, Apr. 13 – Individual Event Finals 11 am ADT – Qualifying gymnasts, all teams

LIVE VIDEO/SCORING: Friday – https://virti.us/session?s=yscEOuDCpb Saturday – https://virti.us/session?s=aXmeqjuUVY Sunday – https://virti.us/session?s=a2jlERgdpn

TITLE TALES: The Seawolves head to Cajun country to conclude the 2025 season this weekend at the Women's Collegiate Gymnastics National Invitational Championships ... UAA is among eight teams chasing postseason team and individual titles ... formerly known as the USAG Championships, the Seawolves are competing in the event for the first time since 2005 ... from 1985-2005, UAA produced 39 USAG 'All-American' certificates among 12 gymnasts, including titles by Elena Tkacheva (AA & FX 1997), Jessi Simmons (VT 1998) and Dominique Ingram (VT & FX 2004).

WCGNIC FORMAT: The top two teams from each session in Friday's team semifinal round will compete for the team title in a quad meet Saturday ... UAA will be in Friday's second session against Texas Woman's, host Centenary and West Chester ... the team champion will be determined solely from the results of Saturday's competition ... on Sunday, the top five gymnasts from each event in each Friday session will compete for individual event finals; every athlete who makes the event finals will be considered an WCGNIC 'All-American.'

LAST TIME OUT: UAA hosted the MPSF Championship for the first time since 2015 when it welcomed Sacramento State, Southern Utah and UC Davis to the Avis Alaska Sports Complex on March 22 ... the Seawolves finished last with a 191.875 score, despite tying the No. 9 vault total in program history at 48.500 ... sophomore Jada Niles tied for 5th place on bars with a career-high 9.8, while freshmen Hannah Boyd (9.75) and Verena Wong (9.7) set and tied their respective bests on vault ... Montana Fairbairn led UAA to a 48.525 total on floor with a 9.825, and fellow senior Grace Costello paced a 48.325 beam total with a 9.75.

STICKIN' IT: The Seawolves recorded the second-best floor NQS (48.450) and are on pace for the third-best floor average (48.336) in the program's Div. I history (since 2002) ... UAA's overall (191.325) and beam (47.948) averages each currently rank fifth on the program lists ... the 193.325 and 193.000 scores Feb. 21 and 23 ranked as UAA's best ever in back-to-back regular-season meets and ranked 10th and 12th on the program list ... UAA's 49.025 floor score ranked No. 2 in program history, while the 48.650 Feb. 10 at Oregon State tied for No. 16 ... the Seawolves matched the No. 4 bars total (48.900) in program history with their Mar. 9 performance at Towson, while the 48.450 Feb. 21 tied for No. 19 ... the 48.500 vault score at the MPSF meet tied for No. 9 on the program list and was UAA's second-best on that apparatus since 2017.

'WOLF BITES: Senior Montana Fairbairn went from two to 10 career victories with her performances against Greenville and Sacramento State ... with her 9.9 floor routine Feb. 21, the Canadian became just the fourth Seawolf to earn 9.85 or better at least three times on that apparatus, joining former standouts Dominique Ingram (2004-06), Mandi Burdick (2001-04) and Elena Tkacheva (1994-97) ... Fairbairn has scored 9.625 or better on 29 of her 33 routines this season, after leading UAA last year with 30 scores of 9.6 or higher ... Fairbairn's 9.811 floor average is on pace to break the school record of 9.798 (Sophia Hyderally in 2019), while her 9.835 NQS was No. 2 all-time at UAA ... junior Ariana DeSouza is also on pace for a top-4 program mark with a 9.758 floor average, scoring between 9.65 and 9.85 on all 10 routines, including a 9.8 at MPSFs ... senior Grace Costello has earned 9.55 or better on 24 of her 29 routines, including nothing lower than 9.575 on all but one beam routine ... Costello's 9.640 beam average currently ranks No. 13 on the UAA single-season list ... UAA is enjoying one of its most consistent seasons on vault with the addition of four key pieces in 2025, getting no lower than a 9.3 from Boyd, freshman Maribelle Albert, sophomore Jamilia Duffus and freshman Verena Wong on 34 of their 36 vaults ... a transfer from Talladega, Duffus has also strengthened the bars lineup, earning a team season-high 9.825 on Feb. 23 ... junior Madelyn Gomez (9.8), sophomore Avery Tillmanns (9.775) and sophomore Claudia Lessig (9.725) all recorded career highs on bars Mar. 9 at Towson, while Duffus (9.8) recorded her fifth score of 9.7 or better.

BOYD IS THE WORD: After helping UAA to a trio of historic scores, Hannah Boyd was chosen the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Gymnastics Freshman of the Week for Feb. 17-23 ... the Minnesotan started her weekend with scores of 9.5 on beam, 9.55 on floor and a then-career-best 9.625 on vault, aiding the 10th-best total team score in program history at 193.325 ... in Sunday's rematch with Sacramento State, she boosted a 193.300 total – No. 12 on the UAA list – with a 9.6 on beam and career highs of 9.7 on vault and 9.8 on floor ... her floor routine was critical to a 49.025 total, which was No. 2 on the school's all-time list, while her vault boosted a team season-high 48.275.

2025 SEAWOLF INDIVIDUAL HONORS HANNAH BOYD Second Team All-MPSF (All-Around) MPSF Freshman of the Week, Feb. 17-23 GRACE COSTELLO Second Team All-MPSF (BB) JAMILIA DUFFUS Second Team All-MPSF (UB) MONTANA FAIRBAIRN Second Team All-MPSF (VT) Second Team All-MPSF (FX)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — An iconic pet reindeer beloved by many in Alaska’s largest city has been euthanized, just weeks after someone tampered with his cage and possibly poisoned him, his caretaker said Wednesday.

“I don’t have an answer as to why he had to be put down other than it relates back to what happened,” said Albert Whitehead, who cared not only for the 8-year-old reindeer named Star but also the decades-long tradition of having a reindeer in downtown Anchorage.

Star lived in a fenced-in pen attached to Whitehead’s house on a busy street at the edge of downtown. But starting in early January, someone began tampering with the friendly reindeer and his pen.

A person got inside the pen in January, and Star began losing weight. In February, someone cut the locks off the pen’s gates and Star wandered downtown streets. The following night, someone sprayed some type of substance into Star’s pen.

Earlier, Whitehead shied away from thinking that person might have poisoned Star, but now he doesn’t know.

Star had a persistent cough after the February incidents and then developed pneumonia. It was believed that contents from his stomach were coming up through his nose, and Star breathing that matter back into his lungs caused the pneumonia.

It’s possible Star ate a plastic bag when he was wandering downtown Anchorage, which could cause indigestion problems and chronic weight loss.

He was cured of pneumonia but developed a second bout.

“He started to recover and then all of a sudden reversed himself, and we decided it was not possible to save him,” Whitehead said. Star was euthanized Tuesday, the same day the necropsy was conducted.

Results won’t be known for a few weeks as to the possible cause of death or contributing factors, Whitehead said.

There has been a pet reindeer housed in downtown Anchorage since the 1950s. This particular Star was the seventh in the line to live with either Anchorage pioneers Oro and Ivan Stewart or Whitehead after he took over for the Stewarts in 2002.

Star, which had his own Facebook page, constantly got visitors to his pen, attracting tourists and locals alike. He got daily walks in downtown Anchorage, was featured in parades, was visited by schoolchildren and even appeared on reality TV shows.