A time and place for all cheeses

BENOIT, Wis. — Jill Raspotnik, owner of the Benoit Cheese Haus, has made it her mission to ensure that Wisconsin’s northern-most residents have every opportunity to enjoy the finest fromage their state has to offer.

A native of the southern half of the state, Raspotnik said moving to the northern lakeshore region brought her a shock.

“We had cheese stores and factories all around us; my mom worked at Simon Specialty Cheese in Little Chute and my grandpa was a cheesemaker,” Raspotnik said. “When I moved up here, I asked my husband where the cheese store was. He told me it was at the grocery store.”

With her background, that answer did not appease Raspotnik. She noticed Benoit’s National Farmers Organization Dairy Reload and Livestock Station, which had served as a hub for the area’s agricultural community since 1973, and saw an opportunity.

“It had become a little commodity store,” Raspotnik said. “Back in the day, farmers used to all bring their milk here to put in the big bulk tank. They’d bring their milk and pick up their basics — bread, butter and cheese. That all changed when the milk trucks started going to the farms to pick up milk. It really became more of a gathering place for the local coffee clutch.”

With its history deeply ingrained in the dairy industry, Raspotnik purchased the store in 2016 and rebranded it as the Benoit Cheese Haus, a name that ties to the unincorporated community of Benoit.

“Benoit is French for blessed, and haus is German for house,” Raspotnik said. “So, we are the blessed cheese house.”

Her decade as a purveyor of quality cheeses to her fellow northern Wisconsinites has indeed been one of blessings, Raspotnik said.

“There weren’t a lot of options for specialty cheeses in this area,” Raspotnik said. “When I first started out, everyone and their brother came in wanting to buy Colby Longhorn and Baby Swiss; those were the area’s favorite staples.”

Raspotnik said she wanted to share the wide world of Wisconsin cheese with her neighbors.

“Most people didn’t understand the cheese world, like what I’d grown up with,” Raspotnik said. “We’d give samples — that’s a big thing. We highly encourage samples, right from the beginning. You can sample anything that we cut off the wheels in back.”

Those samples proved to be a gateway for Raspotnik’s customers.

“At first some were a little set back and said, ‘Oh, we don’t eat anything but Colby,’ but then they started dreaming of these cheeses they were sampling,” Raspotnik said. “They’d come back and say they just had to get more.”

Raspotnik offers more than 150 varieties of cheese at the Benoit Cheese Haus, mostly made in Wisconsin, with a smattering of imports sprinkled among the inventory. Raspotnik invests time and research in determining what cheeses to place on her shelves.

“Some cheeses have won awards, others I know from my background,” Raspotnik said. “A lot come from customer requests, and I have some cheesemakers who will reach out to me asking if I’d like to carry their products. It’s a lot of trial and error, and if something doesn’t do well, we just move on to something else. It’s a lot of fun, because there are so many cheeses to choose from.”

Sharing her appreciation of cheese has created a bond between Raspotnik and her customers.

“I just let them try it and shared how to use different varieties,” Raspotnik said. “It didn’t take long, and people were hooked. I’d share about the award-winning Gouda made in Thorp, Havarti that tastes so good on a burger, or Dumbarton Blue, a lovely cave-aged cheddar, infused with blue cheese that is terrific on a steak. Now a lot of people come in asking what’s the newest, the latest.”

Raspotnik said the samples allow her customers to be adventurous with their cheese selections.

“You might see some of these cheeses in the grocery store, but it’s probably not something you’re willing to spend $20 (on) to try something you don’t know if you’ll like,” Raspotnik said. “Having that sample allows them the opportunity to try something new and different.”

The affection Raspotnik’s customers have developed for the vast world of cheese she has opened to them is mutual, she said. Throughout the year, Raspotnik holds several special events to celebrate her customers, including the annual customer appreciation day and cheese parade held each year in early June.

“We celebrate with games and prizes, brats with all the fixings, cake and of course cheese,” Raspotnik said. “It’s just old-school fun, the kids love it and so do the adults. We have lots of specials in the store and a visit from Maggie, an interactive cow that provides an educational element for the kids. The whole event is capped off by a parade through the little town of Benoit.”

At this year’s events, Raspotnik hosted more than 400 loyal customers.

Raspotnik said she enjoys the relationships she establishes with her regular customers (who are) residents of the area. As much, though, she enjoys sharing her cheeses with travelers and vacationers in the region.

“We’re definitely a tourist destination area in the summer and fall, (because) we’re surrounded by nature’s beauty,” Raspotnik said.

Bringing the best cheese Wisconsin has to offer has given Raspotnik a purpose she had not envisioned 10 years ago.

“It’s fun to see how northern Wisconsin has adapted and changed to what we have to offer,” Raspotnik said. “There is a time and place for all cheeses, from simple American slices to something like Brick, that they remember their grandpa used to eat — they might be afraid to try it, but when they do, with some chicken soup on a saltine cracker, they like it. Every cheese has a right time and place. The perception of cheese has really changed up here, and I just love it.”