The creamery at Sona Creamery near Eastern Market has remained unused since the adjoining restaurant and wine bar opened in January 2014. But last Friday, wife-husband owners Genevieve and Conan O’Sullivan pulled encyclopedia-thick slabs of cheese curds out of a jacuzzi-sized cheese vat, then chopped them up into squeaky bite-sized pieces for the first time. An inspector from the D.C. Department of Health looked on, occasionally taking photos on his phone to document the process.
The O’Sullivans have had to literally rewrite food production rules in D.C. to even get to this point. But after more than a year and a half of navigating regulatory hurdles and buildout issues, they’ll finally sell their first housemade cheese this weekend. It’s a long time coming not just for Sona, but for the District as well. As far as the owners are aware, the cheesemaking operation will be the first ever in D.C. The O’Sullivans hired freelance writer Whitney Pipkin (an occasional Y&H contributor) to look into the history of cheesemaking in the District. “She did a public records request and all that, and we can’t find anything that was commercially operated,” Genevieve says.
The O’Sullivans initially planned to open the creamery around the same time as the bar and restaurant, but the buildout became far more complicated than expected. A core drill was sent through the concrete building six times just to get the boiler system installed. “When we talked to our creamery friends, they’re like, ‘Yeah, those are city problems,’” Conan says.
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