Visiting the Cheese Board Collective is a quintessential Berkeley experience, from waiting in line to buy a baguette, or sample cheese, or enjoy a piece of gourmet pizza while listening to live music.
The North Berkeley institution has gotten nicer recently. In April, a long-running expansion project that created more space for the cheese counter, baked goods (and customer lines!) was completed.
“The configuration of the new expanded space is much more intuitive to navigate and not as congested,” said worker-owner Radcliffe Eccleston, 30, who’s been with the Cheese Board for six years, during a recent visit to the popular eatery.
Customers no longer feel jammed in the new, roomy cheese area of the Cheese Board Collective. (Larry Sokoloff/Bay City News)
The Cheese Board is a worker-owned cooperative, owned and managed by 50 employees who must put in six months of work before becoming a worker-owner. Established 1967, it was sold to its workers, or “collectivized,” in 1971.
The Cheese Board has grown from two storefronts on North Shattuck at Vine Street; one previously housed a produce store. The new arrangement boasts a pizzeria and a two-door entry into an ample space that has a bakery offering a changing menu of scones, breads and rolls; a dedicated coffee counter; and larger cheese shop.
Before the expansion, customers were jammed together, and transactions would feel rushed. That’s no longer the case.
The store’s operations changed markedly since COVID protocols when baked goods were sold through a walk-up window. The pandemic led to restrictions on cheese selling that stayed in place.
“You weren’t really able to walk up and converse with the person behind the cheese counter, talk about what cheeses suited your needs,“ Eccleston said. Cheese samples were no longer offered and the cheese was sold pre-cut.
Today in the new space, cheesemongers have more time for slices, advice and samples. Also, the store is newly offering fresh pasta for sale.
Tasty pizza slices at the Cheese Board Collective cost $3.25 plus tax. (Larry Sokoloff/Bay City News)
The new expanded Cheese Board Collective has plenty of space for dining and live music. (Larry Sokoloff/Bay City News) 
The bakery in the newly expanded Cheese Board in North Berkeley shares space with an improved cheese shop and coffee service station. (Larry Sokoloff/Bay City News)“I think it’s an improvement. It was way too crowded before,” said Jared Lempert of Berkeley, while waiting in the bakery line.
The pizzeria continues to bustle during lunch and business hours. A $3.25 slice of pizza on a recent Friday featured roasted eggplant, mozzarella and tzatziki. Across the street, the culinary landmark Chez Panisse was offering a lunch pizza with marinated peppers, capers and rosemary for $30.
It’s unclear whether the expansion is a financial win for the worker-owners. Eccleston said figures on the impact of the expansion are still being tallied. The bakery and cheese store were closed for a month earlier this year before work was completed, and the co-op also had to absorb the cost of purchasing its building in recent years.
An abandoned Bank of America sits next to the pizzeria. Eccleston said there are no plans to expand into that building.
“We’re trying to settle into the new operations,” he said.
The Cheese Board Collective’s Bakery & Cheese, at 1504 Shattuck Ave., and Pizzeria, at 1512 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, are open Tuesdays through Saturdays. Visit https://cheeseboardcollective.coop/.
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