The Cheesemonster Is Back in Washington, D.C.

Alice Bergen Phillips knows how to pivot. After running Cheesemonster Studio, her cheese store in Washington D.C. from 2019 to 2021, she was forced to close after her business partner was attacked outside the shop amid worsening crime in the neighborhood. Bergen Phillips had hoped to relaunch her business in 2023 but a knee injury delayed her plans.But in early 2024, Bergen Phillips is relaunching her business in the nation’s capital focused on offering virtual and in-person cheese classes and catering with her giant cheese boards. “I’m keeping it pretty streamlined to start with the things I am passionate about and see how it goes,” she said. The business will be located in Mess Hall, a culinary incubator space in Edgewood, in northeast D.C.

In the past couple years, Bergen Phillips has kept in the cheese game consulting to local restaurants and food stores. “It’s been a nice way to not leave the cheese business completely, but also  give me a little rest.”

 

From Think Tank to Cheeseboards

Bergen Phillips, 37, initially moved to Washington, D.C. over a decade ago to work in international development for a large think tank. But she soon figured out she cared more about food than working on grant contracts.

In 2011 she moved to California where she she landed her first cheese position after taking a job at a Laguna Beach coffee shop. Two weeks after she started, the store’s cheesemonger quit and someone was needed to staff the cheese counter.

Bergen Phillips, who loved eating cheese while visiting grandparents in England and living in France during college, jumped at the opportunity. “That job taught me that food could be a career and cheese could be my focus,” she said.

Upon returning to Washington in 2014, she gained management experience working at Baked & Wired, a popular coffee shop and bakery. Then, she managed the cheese counter at Via Umbria, an Italian café and market in Georgetown.

Bergen Phillips started Cheesemonster in 2017 as a cheeseboard and catering business that she ran out of one of her distributor’s warehouses. She catered events across the metro area, where her cheese boards got noticed for their artistry and use of large antique wooden boards as big as 12-feet long.

In April 2019  she opened the studio in Brightwood Park and began holding classes and tastings along with doing a small retail business.

When the pandemic hit in March 2020, she closed the store and wondered if she would ever reopen. But 3 months later she re-opened with a new business model. She scrapped the catering business as in-person gatherings were strongly discouraged. In its place, she designed an online shop featuring pictures and descriptions of more than two dozen high-quality cheeses that would constantly rotate – fromage that she thought would delight the palate and widen people’s appreciation for cheese. Shoppers could pick up the cheese at the store or get it shipped to them.

Bergen Phillips also shifted those classes online and made it easy for shoppers to get her cheeses shipped right to their door.

 

Classes and Catering

Cheesemonster held monthly group cheese classes with themes such as cheese and whiskey pairings, cheese and chocolate pairings and cheese and beer pairing. Consumers came to trust Bergen Phillips for choosing the best. She sold cheese in various sizes which helps keep even the best affordable. “I wanted it to be different and fun and also guaranteed to taste good,” said Bergen Phillips, who in 2020 and 2021 ran the studio with fellow cheesemonger and co-owner Kara McGrath. McGrath recently opened her own cheese shop, Paste & Rind Cheese Co. in the H St. Northeast neighborhood of DC. Besides in-person classes, the shop also provides catering, monthly subscription boxes, and cheese wedding cakes. Read our profile of Paste & Rind Cheese Co.

 

Top Cheeses

While the selection of cheeses hasn’t been finalized, as a proponent of artisan and craft cheesemakers, it’s likely they will be similar to prior selections when her top selling cheeses were Brabander Reserve, Albala Tierno and Mt. Alice.

Brabander Reserve, L’Amuse

Formerly known as Black Betty, Brabander Reserve is an extra aged Dutch goat Gouda. Only a few hundred wheels are made each year and Bergen Phillips felt fortunate to carry a full wheel a year. She describes the hard cheese as “A salty and sweet firework with a crystallized texture that lives up to the hype and surpasses it.”

 

Albala Tierno with Honey and Rosemary, Finca Fueztillezjos

This tender pasteurized sheep’s milk cheese with rind covered in honey and rosemary comes from Finca Fuentillezjos Farm in Poblete, Spain. “It’s really well balanced and fatty, similar to a young Manchego cheese,” she shares.

 

Mt. Alice, Von Trapp

Made in Waitsfield, Vermont, with its snow-white rind Bergen Phillips says the creamy cheese looks and feels like a Brie but packs so much more flavor with scents of fresh mushrooms and earth.

Bergen Phillips is excited to be back in the cheese business after a weeklong fellowship at the famed Antonelli’s Cheese Shop in Austin, Texas. “I found out that having a sustainable business model is centering the business around your life, not the other way around,” she said. “It was a light bulb moment to see how I can make this work for me and galvanized me to get this going.”