Judith Davidoff
Anna Landmark (left) and Anna Thomas Bates hope to open their Paoli retail shop by the end of October.
Landmark Creamery has been churning out cheese since 2014. The hand-crafted specialty cheeses now grace the shelves at Fromagination and Willy Street Co-op and pop up on restaurant menus around Madison. Still, Landmark has never had a shop of its own.
Those days are almost over. Co-owners Anna Landmark and Anna Thomas Bates are planning to open an aging facility and retail shop in Paoli before the month is out.
The 5,000-square-foot shop will be at 6895 Paoli Road, the former site of Paoli Local Foods. “We’re calling it Landmark Creamery Provisions,” Landmark explains. “Because most of the time, when people hear ‘creamery,’ they think ‘ice cream,’ and we aren’t actually doing that.”
The retail shop will sell all six of Landmark’s cheeses as well as products from other Wisconsin cheesemakers. “We’ll also have honey, accoutrements like cheese knives and cutting boards, and other kitchen items,” Landmark says. “We’ll be selling cheese cut to order, everything from cheese plates to half-wheels.” Holiday boxes will also be available.
The real magic will happen behind the retail shop, where Landmark is building “cheese caves” to age their creations. “We can’t really dig real caves,” Landmark says, laughing. “So we have to build environments where we can create the humidity and environment that a lot of the different yeasts and molds that develop flavor need to thrive.” The creamery’s Tallgrass Reserve and Anabasque cheeses will each have their own caves, with more rooms for special projects. “This will also allow us to do a couple new cheeses that we haven’t been able to do in the past. We’ll do some bloomy rind cheeses, like mini Camemberts and bries.”
She’s hoping to have a viewing area so customers can see the process, but that will depend on food safety concerns.
Landmark sees Paoli, located about 14 miles south of Madison, as a natural spot for the shop. “It’s such a cute little town,” she says. “We really like being in that location. I love that there’s lots of bikers, plenty of people commuting through. We want to have some events, tastings, little receptions. It feels like a very good fit for us.”
The lack of a dedicated retail space up to this point has hardly hurt Landmark’s development. Since its launch three years ago, the creamery has won national awards and established distribution to both coasts. “Wisconsin is a very competitive place for cheesemaking, but it’s also very welcoming,” Landmark says. “The big producers recognize the prestige that smaller companies and artisan producers bring to the industry, and there’s a lot of investment in the industry as a whole. The infrastructure here is very good, in terms of finding markets and distributing our cheeses.”
The cheese isn’t the only thing winning awards. Co-founder Bates is a multiple-time Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Champion, so expect some killer sammies at Landmark’s new digs.
Hours aren’t set yet, but Landmark says they’re planning on a daily breakfast service with coffee, grab-and-go cheese snacks, and bakery items from Honey Bee Bakery.
