Seattle's thriving cheese scene (yes, we have one) is adding a major new player with Murray's Cheese, the renowned New York cheese shop, coming to town. Mini-Murray's will be opening inside seven QFC markets this year, starting March 28 at the University Village branch.
"I love to tell people it's almost like you picked up our store in New York and dropped it in the middle of the supermarket," said Murray's marketing director, Deena Siegelbaum. Technically, the selection will be smaller than the New York original, which boasts its own cheese caves and cheese handbook — but even so, we'll be looking here at a selection of 175+ cheeses, which is fewer than DeLaurenti, but a number Siegelbaum said is "lovely and almost dizzying" and yet manageable. The shops will also carry local specialty items like Renee Erickson's fabulous Boat Street Pickles. Murray's has similar operations in Kroger-owned stores in seven other states. (While they've come here, our own Beecher's has opened a New York branch.)
Why open a store-within-a-grocery store instead of a standalone shop?
"We've been around since 1940, and our mission is to bring the best cheese selection to the U.S. while educating customers about cheese," Siegelbaum said. Supermarkets are "an opportunity" to entice and educate customers who might not think to visit a standalone cheese shop, or consider themselves particular cheese connoisseurs. Expect cheese-shop standards like being able to buy whatever quantity you like and being able to taste interesting finds.
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