Few Bay Area food businesses have a story quite like the Cheese Board Collective. It's two businesses on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, a cheese shop and bakery at 1504 and a pizzeria two doors down at 1512, and both are owned and run by the people who work there.
Quick note for this weekend
The Cheese Board says dinner at the pizzeria on Saturday, Oct. 31, will run from 4:30 to 7 p.m., closing an hour earlier than usual.
From shop to co-op
The Cheese Board opened as a small cheese store in 1967. Wikipedia says the founders were Elizabeth Magarian Valoma and Sahag Avedisian, and the first storefront was at 2114 Vine Street. In 1971 the two owners sold the business to their employees. The co-op says it became 100% worker-owned, with the founders staying on as members. Wikipedia adds that shares were split equally among the founders and six employees, and wages were made equal.
Bread and pizza
The Cheese Board started baking bread around 1975, Wikipedia says, and helped popularize the French baguette for American customers. Along with Peet's Coffee, it is credited with starting North Shattuck's rise as the "Gourmet Ghetto."
Today the shop sells almost 400 cheeses, along with fresh bread, pastries and espresso. The pizzeria makes one pizza of the day for lunch and dinner four days a week.
The co-op today
The collective is part of a wider network of worker cooperatives, including the Arizmendi Association. Its 2003 cookbook, The Cheese Board: Collective Works, includes more than 100 recipes plus a history of the collective.
"I love saying to people that this seems like an impossible business model, but it works, and it works very well," a former longtime member named Charlie is quoted as saying on the co-op's site.