{"id":3099,"date":"2025-03-26T16:24:50","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T16:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/cheese-shops-we-love-mongers-provisions\/"},"modified":"2025-03-26T16:24:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T16:24:50","slug":"cheese-shops-we-love-mongers-provisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/cheese-shops-we-love-mongers-provisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheese Shops We Love: Mongers\u2019 Provisions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Locations<\/strong><\/h2>\n

3127 12 Mile Rd<\/p>\n

Berkley, MI 48072<\/p>\n

4240 Cass Avenue, #111<\/p>\n

Detroit, MI 48201 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finding Love & Cheese<\/strong> <\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n

\"Mongers<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cI saw that love came out of the kitchen,\u201d recalls Mongers\u2019 Provisions<\/a> co-owner and Michigan native Zach Berg, \u201cand I really wanted to be a part of that,\u201d he says, recognizing from a tender age even as a restaurant dishwasher that his adult future would be in the culinary space in some regard.<\/p>\n

After a hospitality management degree from Michigan State University, Berg worked with legendary Ann Arbor deli Zingerman\u2019s<\/a>, which turned out to be a crash course in cheese appreciation. \u201cAt that point, I knew really nothing about cheese,\u201d says Berg. \u201cI was the average American in the sense that I could tell you that cheddar, gruy\u00e8re, and brie existed, but those terms meant nothing.\u201d It was a taste of Gabietou<\/a>, a French washed rind, mixed-milk cheese during his training at Zingerman’s that opened up the possibility of cheese as a slice of the culinary realm where he might eventually find a spiritual \u2014 and physical \u2014 home. \u201cI remember looking at whoever was doing the tasting with me and being like, where was this? Why did no one tell me flavor existed like this?\u201d recalls Berg. \u201cIt was a moment where something just clicked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following an extended stint at Zingerman\u2019s, he decided to pursue further culinary aims via an accelerated cooking program in Napa Valley. \u201cMy dream was always to be a chef owner,\u201d says Berg. \u201cThat was the path I thought I was on for so long.\u201d Like many with chef dreams, however, the restaurant kitchen experience proved disheartening. It was a California run-in with former boss, Zingerman\u2019s founder Ari Weinzweig, that helped put him back on a genuine path to cheese. \u201c(Ari) looked at me and said, \u2018You look miserable. Why don’t you go back to cheese? You are a really happy person.\u2019 And yeah, I listened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berg stayed in California for a spell, working with famed San Francisco grocer Bi-Rite<\/a> as a return to the cheese business, before deciding to return to Michigan to open his own. \u201cI knew I wanted to open up a business, buy a home, and start a family,\u201d he says, \u201cand it seemed like the idea of convincing somebody I met in San Francisco to move to snowy Michigan was not a likely order of operations. So I moved on to accomplish those things.\u201d (Of note: he accomplished all 3 in the span of 6 years, so if the cheese business doesn\u2019t pan out, I see a promising future as a life coach.)<\/p>\n

Partnering with longtime friend and budding chocolatier Will Werner, they opened up a cheese and chocolate counter in a butcher shop in order to avoid the lengthy inspection process of a new space by opening in an existing business. After a year and a half of that model, delivering chocolate and cheese samples to Southeastern Michigan foodies who were lining up for hyper-local, ethically sourced meat, in 2018 Mongers\u2019 Provisions finally found a space of their own.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Store(s)<\/strong> <\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n

\"Mongers<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Opening a store in Detroit was always an important piece of the plan for Berg, as a way to marry his urban experience in San Francisco with his suburban Michigan upbringing. \u201cDetroit’s a world class city, and it deserves world class amenities,\u201d says Berg, and additionally, \u201cI feel strongly about the Jewish Detroiters\u2019 narrative that everyone left and then moved farther away. It was important to me that my family’s story went back. The health of Southeastern Michigan is the health of Detroit. I feel strongly about that, and so I wanted to be impactful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, as a fellow native Michigander, it\u2019s impossible not to notice how, even in the suburbs radiating outward from Detroit, the culinary and artisanal food scene is growing seemingly exponentially. At a visit to Mongers\u2019 Provisions second location in Berkley over the holidays, I was thrilled to find a bustling enterprise, with several mongers working the well-stocked case, (the only place I\u2019ve seen Piave Vecchio Oro stateside,) a (literal) wall of chocolate, every kind of cheese accoutrement or resource you might seek, (including Meg Quinn\u2019s Cheese Board Deck,) and a robust wine selection that also pays rightful homage to Michigan\u2019s on-the-rise wine industry. It is, in a word: inviting. And in another? Fun.<\/p>\n

Best Sellers
<\/strong><\/h2>\n

L\u2019Amuse Signature Gouda<\/a><\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"L\u2019Amuse<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

No stranger to the best selling cheeses in our Cheese Shops We Love series, Berg cites as Mongers\u2019 Provisions top seller, joining ranks with Philadelphia\u2019s DiBruno Bros., and New York\u2019s Bedford Cheese Shop where this is also the case, or\u2026kase.<\/p>\n

A kind of gouda cheese candy made in the Netherlands by affinage whisperer Betty Koster and imported by Essex St. Cheese Co., it\u2019s a no-brainer for Berg: \u201cA two-and-a-half year old, aged gouda, it\u2019s just delicious,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fromager d\u2019Affinois<\/a><\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n

\"Fromager<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

\n

\u201cA really simple double cream that is always consistent and always works,\u201d says Berg, of France\u2019s Fromager d\u2019Affinois. Because of its easy fandom, Berg uses this approachable selection to educate customers about bloomy rinds broadly. \u201cWhen the American consumer says \u2018brie,\u2019 what they mean is this cheese. We often get other cheeses that are more serious representations of brie, but Fromager d\u2019Affinois is what people love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Challerhocker<\/a><\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n

\"Challerhocker\"<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

From my personal experience, the mere word \u201cChallerhocker\u201d has the ability to make a room full of cheese professionals swoon \u2014 a deeply flavored, wine-washed, Alpine-style cheese from the hands of Switzerland\u2019s Walter Rass.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got to visit Walter Rass this summer which was so special,\u201d says Berg. \u201cWe asked what it\u2019s like to be a cheese rock star and he said, \u2018This doesn’t exist in Switzerland. It\u2019s an American thing. My neighbors don’t care who I am.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also Look For <\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n

\"Mongers\u2019<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cLike many small businesses, when guests ask us to do something we tend to just say yes,\u201d says Berg. \u201cBefore I opened Mongers I knew that we could never just be just a cheese shop.\u201d Indeed, the banner for Mongers\u2019 Provisions isn\u2019t so much \u201ccheese retailer\u201d as \u201cculinary outfitter,\u201d where a focus on chocolate also makes up 50% of the ownership effort.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was also really important to me that we were going to do grilled cheeses eventually,\u201d says Berg, and Mongers\u2019 now serves grilled cheese sandwiches 6 days a week in both locations, as a means of highlighting different, often adventurous cheeses in an approachable format and a reasonable price. \u201cIntroducing things like Raclette to Detroit by putting Better Made potato chips and cornichons in the sandwich. People are into that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Locations 3127 12 Mile Rd Berkley, MI 48072 4240 Cass Avenue, #111 Detroit, MI 48201 \u00a0 Finding Love & Cheese \u201cI saw that love came out of the kitchen,\u201d recalls Mongers\u2019 Provisions co-owner and Michigan native Zach Berg, \u201cand I really wanted to be a part of that,\u201d he says, recognizing from a tender age … Okumaya devam et “Cheese Shops We Love: Mongers\u2019 Provisions”<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[395],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-milk-and-diary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}