Cheese Board Collective

Cheese Board Collective
Exterior of Cheeseboard Pizza
Restaurant information
Established	1967
Current owner(s)	Collectively owned
Food type	Cheese shop/bakery and pizzeria
City	Berkeley
State	California
Website	cheeseboardcollective.coop

The Cheese Board Collective in Berkeley, California, comprises two worker owned and operated businesses: a cheese shop/bakery commonly referred to as "The Cheese Board", and a pizzeria known as "Cheese Board Pizza". Along with Peet's Coffee, the Cheese Board is known for its role in starting the North Shattuck neighborhood of Berkeley on its way to becoming famous as a culinary destination: the "Gourmet Ghetto". The Cheese Board brought a European focus on cheeses but also emphasized locally grown cheeses, a novel concept in the 1970s. The Cheese Board was closely connected with the restaurant Chez Panisse, helping to supply ingredients for the birth of California cuisine. The bakery brought the French baguette into vogue for Berkeley consumers, and helped spark a revolution in artisan bread.

The Cheese Board is located at 1504 Shattuck Avenue and Cheese Board Pizza is located two doors down the street at 1512 Shattuck Avenue. In 2003, the Cheese Board Collective put together a cookbook, The Cheese Board: Collective Works.

The Cheese Board was founded as a privately owned cheese shop in 1967 by Elizabeth and Sahag Avedisian (1930–2007). In 1971, the owners and their six employees converted their business from a conventional privately owned firm to an egalitarian worker-owned collective by distributing shares in the business equally between themselves and their employees and equalizing the wages of all of the new worker/owners. The semi-autonomous Pizza operation was started in 1990. The combined operation currently has over 55 workers.

When founded, the shop primarily sold cheese, but by 1975 the Cheese Board began to experiment with baking bread. Bread was originally produced in small quantities as an informal, impromptu sideline. Although bread sales were initially minor they marked a shift from a purely mercantile business model of buying and selling cheese to a mixed model that combines on-site, artisanal hand-production with domestic and import retail. The sale of baked goods grew rapidly, the baguette in particular. The Cheese Board popularized the baguette for U.S. customers. Bread now accounts for a significant portion of the store's business. As the sale of bakery products grew so did the variety of breads, pastries and other baked goods offered. The Cheese Board: Collective Works reports that, "The varying bread schedule is complex enough that even the workers have difficulty remembering it."