Coming in from the cold at The Cheese Shop in Des Moines

The Cheese Shop is such a nice addition to my local neighborhood strip mall – The Shops of Roosevelt in Des Moines.  I finally visited yesterday after driving by it’s fogged-up glass windows for days, vaguely seeing people gathered at tables and around the cheese counter.  Struck me as a particularly warm place to come in from the cold – and so it is.

I sat at the wooden bar (salvaged from a local architectural salvage shop) by the cheese counter with a friend, sipping a small glass of amber-colored cider (the kind with alcohol) and nibbling on a plate of artisanal cheeses, including a delicious Vermont cheddar (although not the delicious Vermont cheddar we ate in Grafton, Vt. when we were there in September), hearty bread from La Mie (a few doors down in the center) and fancy olive oil.

Yes the cheese is pricey (some are $27 a pound) and next time I will try to sit at one of the three or four tables rather than the counter (better for carrying on a private conversation) but this place is a keeper.  I hope it continues to find customers and does well.

Good also to see The Shops  filling in after a period when several businesses left. Never good to have empty store fronts.  And there’s a fun mix at the moment that sort of reminds me of an old town square with the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. You can visit “The Cheese Shop,” “The Soap Shop” and “The Juice Company.” (Reminds me of  Tucson’s fondness for one-syllable, to-the-point shop names like “Sauce,” a pizza place, which is next to “Frost,” an ice cream shop.) Plus you can get baked goods/a meal (at La Mie), a haircut, upscale second-hand clothes,  one-of-a-kind handmade jewelry, not to mention do a little yoga and, if need be, get some body-cracking  from a chiropractor.

Fun Fact according to the DMRegister: One of the cheese shop owners is the son of the guy who opened the original Timbuktuu Coffee Shop in the same strip (where La Mie is now.)