Murray’s Cheese: Neighborhood Heart, National Reach

Education, careful curation and hands-on affinage help a NY institution bring the intimacy of a specialty cheese shop to customers.

Step into Murray’s Cheese on Bleecker Street and the abundance is part of the magic. The counter is stacked with anywhere from 200 to 300 cheeses, including familiar cheddars, delicate bloomies and rugged natural rinds. For an experienced turophile, it is an invitation. For a first-time specialty cheese shopper, it can be intimidating.

This is where Murray’s really shines, by offering knowledge delivered with hospitality. A cheesemonger starts a conversation, asks what the customer likes and what the cheese needs to do, then offers a taste. The goal is not simply to complete a sale. It is to help someone leave with confidence.

“The thing that is so great about Murray’s is: No. 1, the longevity of it, but No. 2, the fact that we’ve held on to our neighborhood feel even as we have continued to grow,” says Cynthia Chovet, vice president of operations at Murray’s Cheese. “There are fewer specialty shops like us around. Everything changes, but it’s nice to know that you can rely on the fact that we’re there.”

SCALING THE NEIGHBORHOOD SHOP

Murray’s began as a single Greenwich Village shop in 1962. Today, its New York retail business includes the Bleecker Street flagship and a Grand Central Market shop that has served commuters, tourists and regulars for more than two decades. Both occupy iconic locations, Chovet says, but still function as neighborhood stores.

The company’s relationship with Kroger opened a larger route to the consumer. Murray’s joined the Kroger family of companies in 2017, and its branded kiosks now operate within the Kroger footprint across the U.S. The arrangement gives customers far from Manhattan access to a curated specialty selection and a monger-led experience inside a supermarket.

Extending its reach without flattening the experience is crucial to Chovet’s work. A chef by training, she spent 25-plus years in specialty foods, much of it with French and Italian companies operating in the United States. Murray’s is her second cheese company, and she views its longevity with an operator’s eye and an appreciation for place.

“We’ve worked very hard to make sure that we continue to handpick all of the selections we carry and preserve how we interact with customers,” says Chovet. “We’ve maintained that trust even as we’ve grown. For me, that’s part of the joy of working for a brand that has been able to hold on to its heart but continue to grow.”

EDUCATION AT THE COUNTER

For Murray’s, education is not a responsibility that sits apart from retail. It is the daily approach that makes a large assortment accessible.

“We continue to educate the customer every single day, because people walk in and we’ll have 200 to 300 different cheeses on the counter for sale,” says Chovet. “If you’re not familiar with specialty cheese, that could be a bit overwhelming.”

The monger’s task, therefore, is to lower that introduction barrier. Rather than leading with technical language, employees ask why the shopper came in, what flavors they already enjoy and what they want to accomplish. A cheese for a weeknight recipe invites a different recommendation than the centerpiece of a celebration board.

“We really depend on our mongers to open those conversations with customers, figure out what they want and talk them through things,” says Chovet. “More importantly, we have them taste things as well. Letting people taste and try is a key part of finding what they will really enjoy.”

CURATING WITH PURPOSE

Behind that freedom to explore is a disciplined selection process. Murray’s merchandising team holds tastings, works closely with suppliers, and maintains relationships with small producers — including American makers looking for a route to market for a new cheese.

“We bring new things in constantly,” says Chovet. “It can be a smaller producer trying something new that they want us to take to the market for them. Our merchandising team works very closely with our suppliers and producers to get the cheeses they think help fill in our set in a meaningful way.”

But there’s more to the selection process. The team considers whether a prospective cheese adds something distinct or duplicates a style already in the case. It also must meet Murray’s standards for production, flavor and quality.
The resulting assortment intentionally spans geographies and traditions. Old World European cheeses remain essential, as do American farmstead and specialty selections. Murray’s also carries cheeses from Mexico and South America and continues looking to other regions for traditional products that can bring an unfamiliar flavor or story to the counter.

A CREATIVE ENGINE IN LONG ISLAND CITY

Selection is only one way Murray’s shapes what it sells. At its Long Island City caves, the company practices affinage, taking young cheeses and guiding their maturation through controlled environments and hands-on care.

Chovet has visited the Emmi Kaltbach caves in Switzerland, where granite-lined spaces are built into a mountain. “We don’t have mountains in Long Island City,” she says, “but we created a similar environment to age cheeses in.”

The facility includes separate caves for Alpine, natural-rind, bloomy-rind and washed-rind cheeses. Each requires a different balance of temperature and humidity, and each supports distinct organisms, textures and flavors.

“It is not that we are actually making the cheeses, but we are taking a green cheese and turning it into something unique through the aging process,” says Chovet.

Stockinghall, Murray’s award-winning clothbound cheddar, demonstrates the partnership. A New York producer makes the young cheese for Murray’s, then sends it to Long Island City, where the caves team carefully ages and tends it for at least a year before release.

The program received another validation in July, when six Murray’s cave-aged cheeses earned medals at the 2026 American Cheese Society Judging & Competition. The recognition underscores a role few retailers occupy: Murray’s does not merely source and sell artisan cheese; it helps determine how select wheels will express themselves at maturity.

WHAT’S OLD IS NEW AGAIN

Chovet sees the specialty market moving back toward many of the qualities on which Murray’s was built. Higher-end specialty stores are opening again, both as focused shops and within grocery, as consumers pay closer attention to how they feed themselves and their families.

“We’re really going full circle on the artisanal market,” she says. “What’s old is new again. You see the market focusing on: ‘How do I feed myself? How do I feed my family? I want products that are clean. I want products that are good for me.’ That’s where this idea of the artisanal market is coming back into play.”

Murray’s role in that revival is to keep widening the invitation. Chovet is encouraged not only by customers’ cheese knowledge, but by the personal meaning they attach to food made by hand. A memorable cheese becomes connected to a holiday, a trip, a dinner, or the person who introduced it.

“It’s a beautiful thing when it’s been handmade, and you know where it came from,” she says. “Potentially, you know the farmer, and you might have met the cow, the sheep or the goat. It gives people an opportunity to connect back to their food source.”