San Francisco’s 24th Street Cheese Co. in Noe Valley

“Now I can just look at a cheese and know if it's fresh or not fresh. I don't even have to taste it. With the fresh wash-rind cheese from France, you have to smell it. When we get the delivery, you have to check all of them and make sure they're not too old. You have to have a good nose.” That's not to say he doesn't keep on tasting. “I trust my own palate,” he says. “I know what a good cheese should taste like.”

Kung selects cheddar from England, sheep's milk cheeses from Vermont, Spain, and Corsica, aged gouda from Holland, and brie and camembert from France. Prices range from $11.95 to $40 per pound.

“I've carried different cheeses as the people who live in Noe Valley have changed over the past 20 years,” he says. “The people moving in today can afford more high-end really good cheese than people who lived here a long time ago. It was a working-class neighborhood in the mid-‘70s. Now it's totally different. Now it's an upscale neighborhood. Many of the cheeses I carry now I wouldn't dare to carry 15 years ago. But now I can carry pretty much the best cheese in the whole world.”

Customer Taste Tests

Kung and his employees Maria Biehn, Susan Holtslander, and Ellen Herlihy regularly share their knowledge with customers and offer tastes to help them determine which cheeses to purchase. Customer Jeff Critchfield appreciates their expertise. “It's great to know we can stop by and count on Charles and his staff to recommend a variety of cheeses perfectly suited to any occasion,” says Critchfield. “He's opened our eyes and noses and taste buds, to a delicious array of cheeses like Saint Agur, Epoisses de Bourgne, and Livarot. Yum!”

However, the cheese shop wasn't always so applauded. Current and former customers whispered mild complaints about the less than friendly nature of Kung's staff gone by. Customer Amy Iacopi remarks, “I had heard rave reviews about the shop upon moving into the neighborhood. As a cheese novice, I was disappointed on my first visit, because the staff was less than excited to help me. A few months later, I tried again and I'm glad I did. A warm woman gave me a 20-minute cheese tutorial.”

Kung acknowledges their disappointments. He says the closest he ever came to going out of business was several years ago. “We kind of struggled. Maybe at that time I had the wrong employees. When they're rude to customers, customers aren't going to come back. But now I have really good people working for me. This is such a small community, like a small town. You have to be good, because if you're not, everyone knows, and fast.”

The 24th Street Cheese Company's best customers are Noe Valley residents, says Kung. “We also get lots of people from other neighborhoods. They always tell us, ‘Why don't you have a cheese store in the Marina?’ But we get good support from the locals. Our regular customers shop here once a week, usually on their way to or from the Farmers' Market.”

Several customers scoot through the door minutes before the 7 o’clock close on a Friday night. Herlihy leans over the counter and hands taste after taste to first-time customer Rebecca Stevens, as Kung wraps cheeses for storage overnight.

Stevens settles on a double-crème gouda, triple-crème brie, and sopersata salami. She was inspired to come in, she says, by a tip from some friends visiting from Chicago. “They came home with some really amazing cheese, and I asked, ‘Where did you get that? Certainly not Bell Market.’ This is the place. It's better than the one in Cole Valley.”

Herlihy flips the sign from Open to Closed, and Kung holds the door as his customers make their way past him into the cool night air. Then he turns and ambles through his rustic cheese shop and up the back stairs to his home, where his wife is waiting for him.