At this inflection point in the pandemic, it’s hard to predict where will we shop for cheese in 2021. Will we continue to buy online because it’s safe and easy, or from the big-box stores because it’s cheap? Or will we return to the small independent merchants who provide the service, selection and smiles we love? The demise of San Francisco’s Mission Cheese and Portland’s Cheese Bar made me anxious about what lies ahead. My recent conversation with Sarah Dvorak of Mission Cheese reminded me that, as consumers, we have to decide what we value. Low prices, selection, quality, knowledgeable service, convenience, personal safety…what matters most to you? I have edited our conversation for brevity.

How was business before the pandemic?

Dvorak: It was good. We showed every sign of having a good year, but I will say that the past four or five years have been challenging in terms of finding employees. People can’t afford to live in the Bay Area.

When the pandemic hit, how did you deal with it? Did you change your business strategy?

So many times! When I knew the city was going into lockdown, I put everyone on temporary layoff, put everything I could on the website and became a one-woman delivery machine. But I burnt out and couldn’t keep up. When the city said we could have outdoor dining, we put a few tables out. Slowly more people felt like coming out, and the delivery orders died off. I brought some employees back, but others had already moved away or couldn’t come back because of childcare. And it was hard to get people to come back until that $600 a week went away. They could stay home, make money and feel safe.

As it got colder, we felt the winds changing again. We planned to have our last day of outdoor dining on November 12, but I knew that would be our last day of dining at Mission Cheese. We were heading into winter, our slowest time, and watching our bank account go down. We’ve always prided ourselves on making sure everybody gets paid. I never wanted to be one of those places that employees find shut with the doors locked.

When the pandemic is history, do you think a similar concept could work again in San Francisco?

Totally. It’s the most heartbreaking thing to not have anyone carry it forward. I’ve always wanted someone to reap the benefits of the work that went into the space and the brand, all the scrappy stuff you do in the beginning to give a space good mojo and build up great reviews. It’s sad to me that that is just going away. I definitely feel like Mission Cheese is a model that can work. One hundred percent. It did work, and it does work, but not in a pandemic.

You really helped champion some new American cheese producers. Can you name a few that you really love and think more people show know about?

Locally, two producers that we’ve watched evolve and come to a point where they’re just stellar are Valley Ford Cheese and Tomales Farmstead. Valley Ford’s Estero Gold Reserve is remarkable cheese, I think—and for the price! And Tomales Farmstead’s Kenne is now definitely a go-to ooey-gooey goat’s milk cheese. It’s “La Tur good,” for sure. Four Fat Fowl’s St. Stephen: that cheese makes me so happy. It’s impossible not to love. Boxcarr continues to make amazing soft-ripened cheese at a really great price. And Jacobs & Brichford makes two of my favorites: Ameribella and Everton.

Over your decade in business, what changes did you note in the American artisan cheese world?

It was a really exciting time in American cheese when we opened. There were new cheesemakers all the time. But then it hit a peak and they started closing: Gypsy Cheese, Pug’s Leap, Bleating Heart, Barinaga. There’s a lot of stress around labor.

The pandemic worries me because everyone has fallen into these purchasing behaviors of Costco and Instacart and commodity Cheddar. I don’t know how to fix that. I speak to people about why it’s important to support smaller domestic producers, but it’s expensive. No one is asking people who are struggling to buy artisan cheese at $30 a pound, but I watch people with Teslas drive into Costco and that’s hard for me. We need those people to lead the charge and help our local producers get to a place where they can scale and be competitive on price. Maybe the pandemic will bring this about. Maybe people will say: I need to support these places if I want them to exist. Mission Cheese is closing now and orders are flooding in. And I’m thinking: Where were you? Why do we have to be faced with closure for people to care?