Jane Burns
Anna Landmark at Seven Acre Dairy.
Anna Landmark is now running the cafe at Seven Acre Dairy.
Things are always changing in Paoli.
Already partners in buttermaking, Landmark Creamery and Seven Acre Dairy became business partners in January when the hotel and restaurant bought into Anna Landmark’s cheesemaking operation and cafe. The opportunity came about when Landmark’s founding partner, Anna Thomas Bates, left late in 2024 to take a job at the Universities of Wisconsin’s Food Finance Institute.
Landmark’s cafe moved from her building at 6858 Paoli Road down the block to the Seven Acre cafe space, where it is called Landmark Creamery & Cafe and incorporates foods from both businesses and more dairy collaborations.
“Now Seven Acre owns part of a cheese and butter company, and we have access to more resources to grow Landmark,” Landmark says. “I think it’s a win-win for both companies.”
Landmark has been making butter at Seven Acre since 2023, a process that’s visible from the cafe. But the dairy focus of both businesses presented opportunities beyond butter.
Seven Acre menu items now feature Landmark’s cheeses and butter. That includes a butter board, which is a swath of butter on a board finished with herbs or other accoutrements and served with a roll or bread.
The lunch menu in the cafe features grilled cheese sandwiches, as it did at the original Landmark property. Biscuits are made with Landmark butter and buttermilk. The cafe also serves raclette hot dogs with a creamy, buttery, fondue-adjacent cheese melted onto the dog. Landmark also makes ice cream that is served at the cafe.
Seven Acre owner Nic Mink says the restaurant has a new chef, Ben Serum from Madison’s DelecTable and A Pig in a Fur Coat, who is eager to bring more dairy items to the menu.
Menu items will “focus on smaller-batch, more innovative, more artisanal things that Anna is testing or doesn’t yet make at scale,” Mink says.
Landmark’s original facility down the road is now used for aging cheese; she makes cheese at Chalet Cheese Cooperative in Monroe with milk from Voegeli Farms’ Brown Swiss herd. With the cafe now at Seven Acre, Landmark has more time and space to host more events.
On March 7, April 4 and May 2, Landmark will host a cheese cave tour and tasting event at her facility that include samples of three or four Landmark cheeses, a glass of wine or other beverage as well as accompaniments.
It’s not like a tour at Cave of the Mounds.
“I have to tell people a little bit about that,” Landmark says. “I’ll say, ‘We’ve got coolers, and we’re aging cheese on wood boards.’”
Mink has more plans for his place, too. He and Landmark plan to work together on a “cheese garden” at Seven Acre during the summer. It’s possibly the most Wisconsin thing ever invented — a beer garden with cheese as its focus.
“We’ll have fun with cheese boards and cheese, cheese spreads and other dairy foods,” Mink says. “And a really nice selection of local beers.”
Mink also plans to add a performance space in the far back of the property to host music during the summer.
With a partnership that is just getting started, neither Landmark nor Mink are out of ideas or room for them to grow.
“We do have seven acres,” Mink notes.
