By: Deborah Johnson Wood
Kathleen Riegler started selling European cheeses at the Muskegon Farmers' Market in 2004. Now she's one of the first new businesses to set up shop in downtown Muskegon. The Cheese Lady is a 900-square-foot cheese shop in a circa 1928 building known by locals as The Arcade.
"The farmers' market has been a nice venue for me," Riegler says. "But I found that in the wintertime I was getting requests for cheeses. I was working out of a 5-foot by 13-foot room in my home. If I was going to expand, I wanted to expand into downtown Muskegon because downtown is on the edge of 'popping.'"
The shop has original terrazzo floors and original maple floors (discovered under a layer of tar, two layers of tile, and a layer of carpet). New plate glass windows have replaced bricked-up window openings in the storefront. And Riegler tissue papered the walls, and then painted over them to make them look old.
Customers may sample nearly everything she sells, from Spain's Manchego sheep's-milk cheese to California's Humboldt Fog cheese made with 70 percent butterfat goat's milk and a ribbon of edible ash; they also can nibble on crackers and jam or jelly, breads, and pâtés.
"But I don't open the caviar," Riegler says with a laugh.
Cheese prices range from $8 to $24 a pound, with most about $12 a pound. Riegler has applied for a wine license, and hopes to be featuring that libation soon.
Source: Kathleen Riegler, The Cheese Lady
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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