Megan Hafner, Kai Knutson, Sally Morgridge, and Emily Schickli interviewed Laura Fromen of The Cheese Cave in Faribault, Minnesota.

I started at the Caves [after] I answered an ad in the paper for a receptionist. I wasn’t currently living in the area, I was in Mankato, and wanted to get back here to be close to my family. I grew up on a dairy farm so he said, “If you want to be a receptionist, great, but let me show you the cheese vats and the knives.” And I was like, “Oh this is amazing.” So I made cheese for six months before they really decided to jump on the idea for a retail location and they asked me to take on the task of managing this place. So that’s where I came into play here with a little bit of cheese knowledge, but more or less just the management part of it.

We’ll be two years old in June so we’re still trying to find our exact niche.  We still don’t have a defined “where we’re going,” so until we do we are going to try and make everyone happy. I wouldn’t ever want to exclude anybody and that’s how I’ve always been. I mean we do everything from party platters to gift baskets to wine and cheese pairings, beer and cheese pairings. We have a menu; we weren’t going to have a menu when we first opened. The first few people that walked through the door said, “Where’s the menu?” And we were like, “Menu? We’re a cheese shop!” And so we have evolved with a menu.

We try to be the only place in town that has the higher end stuff. We strive to be artisanal. We want to have that gourmet feel to it. You maybe are going to make some noodles and sauce for your family some night, but you want it to be a little extra special. So you’re going to get a high end pasta that’s nice and hearty and a great sauce that really sticks to it. And you’re going to top it with some real parmesan reggiano, instead of you know, shaking it out of a Kraft jar. Which is nothing wrong with Kraft, I have two little kids and that’s what they eat. But it’s more about having a higher end experience. It’s just about adding the little touches.

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The Caves are here in town and lend a real sharp strong flavor to the cheeses so we ‘affine age’ it or finish age it there. They started out as a brewery in the late 1800s and then Prohibition shut them down in the ’20s. Nobody used them until they realized water can move vertically and horizontally within the sandstone so there’s no dripping. [Plus] the constant 52 degrees and 99.9% humidity in there. They went, “Ah, we could age cheese in here!” And so that’s when they started doing that because obviously you couldn’t brew beer anymore.

Almost everybody has a story about the Caves. Almost everybody knows somebody. They’ll say, “My dad worked there,” or “My mom worked there,” or “My brother worked there.” I mean 1936 until now they’ve always been making cheese [there]. Some of my mom’s family had some history of working the caves. When I started they were like, “Oh, your great aunt Dorothy!” Everybody that works there now and the people that have been there longer have fond memories of my great aunt working there. If you look hard enough every family has some sort of history with being employed there and working there.

[The] factory store literally is an old Pepsi cooler and they would keep the St. Petes and the Gorg wedges and the whole wheels in there, and that was all that they sold. There are still a few people from a much older generation who just don’t come here. This isn’t their thing, even though our pricing is identical, because we are all one company, they don’t want to come here, they want to go down to the Caves, ring the buzzer to get into that office, and get their cheese out of that cooler. There’s not a lot of them left, because the employees down there really encourage the people to come here because they have a staff and a production line, but there are some people that are just die-hards and they’re not going to get their cheese up here at some fancy hoity-toity place. They’re going to go down to the factory and that’s fine.

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The St. Pete’s Select is the premium. Faribault is very supportive of that. That’s our number one selling product. It’s here, they support local, and so that’s really nice. Our other [local] cheeses that we are known for are St. Mary’s Gouda and then Fini Cheddar. They are made in Wisconsin and then brought over to the Caves to age. Everything else is stuff that we felt a really good cheese shop needed to have or people have asked for and we’ve brought it in. It just depends on what people want and what they’re looking for. We’re more or less here to try and make everyone happy and give them lots of ideas so they can experiment and get back to that experience with cheese or good food.

Maybe two-thirds [of the cheese is] American or local and then the rest [is] imported. We originally were going to have only cheeses made in the United States, but then after considering that you have to have parmesan reggiano… I mean there are good substitutions, but there are a few things you have to have. So we had to break that rule and go outside the continent. But we try to stay as local as possible and keep it as close to home as possible. And so that’s how our line of cheeses evolved.

People are very local-supportive. I mean, if you think about in the blue cheese world, you either like blue cheese or you don’t. Of course there are a lot of people who do, but it’s a tricky cheese.  It’s not cheddar, so the fact that it is our number one seller, here in a community of 27,000, that tells me that they are finding ways on their own to use it and have it in their refrigerator, just to support us.  I’m guessing somewhere else, anywhere else in the state, blue cheese isn’t the number one cheese that any cheese counter is selling.  And they carry it at Nelson’s and HyVee, so you can get it anywhere, but people come here.  We sell it in crumbles so if you don’t love it love it love it, and you’re not going to eat it plain, you’re just gonna make dressing out of it or put it on a burger or salad, there are different ways to get it.

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I come from a family of six girls and so my sisters all work either in this community or near in Owatann. This is not my family’s thing. They’re very goulash, and hot dish and this place is [not]—so they don’t actually come here a lot. They think it’s cool, and they want me to bring cheese to Easter and Thanksgiving and Christmas but this is outside their comfort zone. There’s a population out there that we’re still trying to figure out how to draw. They don’t understand. It’s just outside of their comfort zone. And that’s mainly my family, that’s where I take that from. You know, I roll my eyes and I say, “Guys, it’s just me.”

I want people to understand that you can make a meal out of bread and some cheese and a glass of wine and to slow down. You don’t come here and wolf down your food and then head out the door. That’s not what we are. And then, just for Faribault and the surrounding communities to get a sense that there’s this really great spot and it’s just different and the staff here is really warm and friendly, come and slow down and relax. So you know, we’re always striving to get that feel and, you know, I think we’ve got it. Now we’re at the point where we just need more people to know about us and find out about it and try it once to see.

There’s a lot of great stuff going on downtown and we’re happy to be a part of that. The mom and pop feel. We like that. We’re, all three of us, people pleasers. We want everybody to be happy.