Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, meet the Big Apple.
Seattle’s popular artisan cheesemaker is taking a great big bite, with a factory and shop opening next winter 3,000 miles east of its only other location, in Pike Place Market.
The space on the southeast corner of Broadway and East 20th Street in Manhattan is more than twice the size of Beecher’s current spot. Its 8,000 square feet will include a below-ground wine bar and a cheese cave for aging cheeses that are made on the premises.
Founder and owner Kurt Beecher Dammeier got the idea for a Manhattan store a couple of years ago, when he visited New York to be on “The Martha Stewart Show.”
His business case goes like this: “We sell the bulk of our cheese within a three-hour drive of Pike Place Market, and there are about 2 million people in a three-hour radius of Pike Place Market. There are about 20 million people in a three-hour radius of Manhattan. My simple math says if we can be one-tenth as successful there, we’re going to do great.”
Beecher’s will use its retail outlet in Manhattan as a marketing vehicle, like it does in Seattle, where only about 10 percent of sales come from the store. Most sales are through grocery and specialty markets that sell its cheeses particularly its Flagship cheese, a cross between cheddar and Gruyere and other products like frozen macaroni and cheese.
It sells cheese in about 35 states and a handful of other countries, but 70 percent of its sales are local.
People see cheese being made at its glassed-in Pike Place Market factory and remember that experience when they see Beecher’s products in their stores. Even tourists get hooked.
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