{"id":3480,"date":"2014-02-09T19:51:13","date_gmt":"2014-02-10T00:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=3480"},"modified":"2014-02-09T19:51:13","modified_gmt":"2014-02-10T00:51:13","slug":"opening-cheese-shop-dummies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/opening-cheese-shop-dummies\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening a Cheese-Shop \u2026 For Dummies"},"content":{"rendered":"

This guest blog series is by Andy Swinscoe, who recently opened The Courtyard Dairy<\/a> in North Yorkshire, England.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Part One – choosing the right place<\/h3>\n

I wanted a cheese shop. Somewhere where I could sell the best cheese and mature\/refine it as well.<\/p>\n

But I couldn\u2019t find where to locate it. To return to the north of England was the idea, if only to cut down on the refrigeration bills, but the north of England is not full of plentiful affluent suburbs like the home counties, full of people who would buy the cheese I wanted to sell.<\/p>\n

So I came up with some criteria: I cross-referenced affluent areas in the north of England (using National Statistics data) with well-regarded restaurants mentioned in The Good Food and Michelin Guide<\/a>. I then looked to see if the best areas contained any other good local food shops\u2014needing a draw of food. I was really looking for a good bakers or fishmongers\u2014they need a regular (daily) supply of local customers interested in food.<\/p>\n

This refined my potential locations to six areas, which I visited. I immediately discounted four \u2026 they just didn\u2019t feel right.<\/p>\n

After several months of searching I\u2019d almost given up hope of finding a good unit that fit my criteria. Maybe I was destined just to be a cheese affineur all my life\u2014but turning Comt\u00e9s<\/a> and cheddars was starting to bore a little, never mind the back-ache. And then an email popped into my inbox, from an old friend. \u201cCheck out this new \u2018The Courtyard\u2019 place in North Yorkshire,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Initially, I didn’t check it out as directed. It wasn\u2019t in one of my chosen areas, nor did it fit my criteria, but I thought I\u2019d maybe visit it if I was ever passing. I wasn\u2019t passing, unfortunately, but other friends were\u2026 and they thought it had potential. So one dark morning I drove the 250 miles to view the unit.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What I found was a converted set of barns just off the A65 near Settle, housing a number of quality retailers, all small businesses: a bespoke furniture designer (who\u2019d converted the barns in order to find somewhere to put his showroom), the last \u2018vertical mill\u2019 tweed producer in England, a posh art gallery, a nice bistro and a fantastic wine shop. There was just one poky unit left for which there hadn\u2019t been much demand: it had no window, it was dark and cold (with almost a metre-thick walls!), small\u201416 square meters (about 175 square feet for my American readers), had no storage space, not many nearby restaurants, no fishmongers or butchers\u2026<\/p>\n

But it felt right. The wine shop had a great local reputation\u2026 if I could just tap into his client base\u2026 and on top of that the whole complex was starting to become a \u2018destination\u2019 for high-spend shoppers\u2026<\/p>\n

Life is full of too many \u2018what-if\u2019s\u2019\u2014I didn\u2019t want my plans to open a unique cheese refiner and shop to be one of them! It was time to bite the bullet. So I went for it. Then the fun began!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This guest blog series is by Andy Swinscoe, who recently opened The Courtyard Dairy in North Yorkshire, England. Part One – choosing the right place I wanted a cheese shop. Somewhere where I could sell the best cheese and mature\/refine it as well. But I couldn\u2019t find where to locate it. To return to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[360],"coauthors":[361],"class_list":["post-3480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-global-cheese"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpening a Cheese-Shop \u2026 For Dummies - culture: the word on cheese<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/opening-cheese-shop-dummies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Opening a Cheese-Shop \u2026 For Dummies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This guest blog series is by Andy Swinscoe, who recently opened The Courtyard Dairy in North Yorkshire, England. 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