Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Januska.
Hi Michael, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I grew up in NE, Ohio. I went to culinary school in Florida. Returned to Cleveland, OH to begin my culinary career in the restaurant business. Left from Europe, in 1998. Remained in London, UK as a chef, running a variety of restaurants. Returned to Cleveland, OH in 2013.
On December 17, 2016, we opened Old Brooklyn Cheese Co., Cleveland’s first brick & mortar cheese shop reminiscent to the local cheese shops in Europe. We needed to compete with the big grocery stores’ cheese departments, so I decided to make my own cheese and age them on site. Why cheese? A cheese selection was a typical dessert option on European menus. I adopted this offering to my menus. Bringing back to Cleveland a conversion behind a cheese counter with people that love cheese and can offer unpretentious knowledge was always the goal. We grew in public trust for our cheese and cheesesentric offering. Specializing in cheese & charcuterie boards, featuring local artisan food producers. Old Brooklyn Mustards was created before we opened the cheese shop in August 2016. I made a cheese display at an outdoor dinner eventing with Toast restaurant and Goldhorn Brewery. Since, I was set up to produce cheese yet, I created our Original IPA mustard, Cleveland Caviar so I would have a product that OB Cheese makes.
We now have two cheese shop locations, Cleveland & Shaker Heights. The Cleveland location is also where we age our triple milk Gouda cheeses and produce our world award winning mustards. We have a commercial kitchen that we lease to other artisan producers.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s been interesting. There are not a lot of cheese producers found in the cities. There wasn’t a lot of help to find set up the cheese production and aging cave. Many, many hours on Google and YouTube. I have never run a retail store before.. My background is in restaurants and food. The worry about will customers come in to our shop was a challenge. The biggest struggle was Covid. I had to let the entire staff on leave. I was allowed to remain open as an essential food supplier. The biggest challenge was running the cheese shop alone and trying to continue selling our cheeses and mustards wholesale. I
n the end, I decided to stop producing our seasonally made cheeses. I also decided to close our original cheese shop and relocate the shop to the production facility building on 4464 Broadview Road. Still in Old Brooklyn and less than a mile away. This is when I had reduced the size of the cheese shop and had an opportunity to open a stall in Shaker Heights at the Van Aken Market Hall. I had all the equipment not in use because of the size reduction at the Cleveland location. Finding staff is the number one obstacle. I now invest and hold the highest value in finding and keeping staff than I ever expected. I realized that it didn’t matter how creative I was with the mustards or cheeses, If I was all alone, I would fail.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Old Brooklyn Cheese Co. has five distinct departments.
1. Cheese shops. Full counter cheese service, cheese board specialists, cheese driven lunch menus, retailer of local food products, cheese classes, supporters of local artisan producers.
2. Cheese Affinage. We moved from producing cheese to aging only. Our cheese cave is quite large. floor to ceiling shelving. We can age approximately 20,000 lbs of cheese. We also cave age butter that we use to make our grilled cheese sandwiches truly unique. We age our Old Brooklyn Cheese Co. triple milk Gouda’s produced for us by Old Chatham Creamery, NY.
3. Old Brooklyn Mustards producers of World Award winning mustards.
Original IPA: Bronze Medal- Wholegrain.World-Wide Mustard Competition.
Pepped Up. Good Food Award winner. Best Pantry-Midwest.
Spicy Pear Mostarda. Gold Medal- Best Fruit Mustard. Work-Wide Mustard Competition
Bohemian Blend Good Food Awards Finalist 2022. Best Pantry- Midwest
Featured on the Food network as Cleveland Caviar . Michael Symon E1S1 Throw Down With Michael. ‘Best mustard I have Ever eaten, fact.’, Michael Symon
4. Commissary Kitchen: Responsible for food production of various products sold at the cheese shops.
5. Production Kitchen. Cleveland food producers creating their products in a shared kitchen environment. The Home Pantry, Fuego Fermentations & Neon Juices.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Pursuing your dreams., learning from your mistakes and inspiring others.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@oldbrooklyncheesecompany.com | mustards@oldbrooklyncheesecompany.com
- Website: www.oldbrooklyncheesecompany.com
- Instagram: @oldbklynmustards | @oldbrooklyncheese | @ob_cheese_vanaken
- Facebook: @OldBklynMustards | @obcheese | obcheeseVAM
- Twitter: @OldBklynMustard | @OB_cheese | @OldAken
Image Credits
Old Brooklyn Cheese Co
