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The search for Batchelder's Lost Dutch Chocolate Shop

If your date happens to be into admiring the historical monuments Downtown, you're bound to run into dozens of sightseers just like you, full of love for our architectural wonders.

Yet, like any hidden treasure, true love isn't always easy to find. Such is the case with one of Downtown's most lovable historical monuments, Earnest Batchelder's 100 Year Old Dutch Chocolate Shop.

Without revealing it's hidden location, we can say this, Ernest Batchelder must have truly understood the power of chocolate when it came to love.

In the 1920s, at the peak of his career, Batchelder was given a commission to create the tile mosaics for a newly constructed storefront on 6th Street.

What Batchelder created, like love, has withstood the test of time. Inside the chocolate shop are thousands of his signature amber-colored tiles formed into arches, pillars, countertops, and undamaged mosaics.

Untouched for decades, the shop has an uncanny fresh look, although it may be damp and a bit chilly towards the rear.

Batchelder lined the walls with a series of perfectly preserved mosaic masterpieces.

...10 GREAT DATES

Priceless today, each slab tells a story of Dutch families, servicemen and rural livestock going about their day-to-day.

Today, hidden behind an ordinary rustic rollup door, the abandoned shop caters to a select few for filming and small tours. For added romance - If you can obtain a guide or happen to stumble upon the chocolate shop when its doors are open, waste not a minute before stepping inside. Finding a hidden treasure in the heart of Downtown has love written all over it.

Exposition Park

Lions and tigers and dinosaurs, oh my! We know this sounds like a day for kids. That's precisely why we added it to the list.

There are plenty of single parents out there that are still up for a date. They nor their kid should go without a fun outing in a romantic city such as ours.

Exposition Park is a 160-acre campus of fun, incorporating science, math and technology at the California Science Center, California African American Museum, and Natural History Museum. Life-sized airplanes, rocket ships and dinosaurs remain. Exposition Park is a kiddie haven.

For added romance, visit the California Science Center IMAX Theater. Their family-oriented feel-good movies lighten any heart and keep a child's attention in 3D. Innocence and delight are the keys to the locks of love.

Get a Room!

Ah…the stars are aligned and the mood is ripe. After months of dating, you're finally comfortable with each other and thinking about taking your relationship to the next level. Or if animal magnetism has you wanting to skip to the chase, we're not here to judge.

Instead, may we suggest you - get a room? Downtown Los Angeles is now the hospitality capital in the world. We have the highest hotel in the land, the grooviest hotel elevators, plush rooms like no other, and a concierge to help with your every need.

We purposely left out last year's Dinner and a Movie suggestion because in Downtown, not only do our hotels come with heated pools, room service and free cable, they also utilize the world's greatest Chefs. Every level of your relationship is rewarded at our hotels, from the first date to the honeymoon.

For added romance - Our beloved

Ritz Carlton spa recently debuted a wide range of new treatments explicitly tailored to detoxifying the body. Nothing says "I love you" like fine lava crystals, warming wraps, and a professional massage for two. And yes, there will be bubbly.

10 GREAT DATES + ROMANCE