What does it take to become a cheesemonger? What are some of the best cheeses right now? Where can you try some of this stuff?

Zach Berg from Mongers' Provisions stopped by to talk about all of the tasty things - as well as why they decided to hand over their Midtown location to new owners and a new name (Hosted Detroit), while helping them get started.

We also get into their restaurant, Rind, that's right next to their Berkley store.

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If you don't see the player above, you can listen to the episode here.

A lightly edited automatic transcription of the conversation:

Jer Staes: Let's get into your Daily Detroit for Monday, February 24th, 2025, as we're going to talk about cheesemongering, running a small business and many more tasty topics with Zach Berg of Mongers Provisions.

Joining me at the table at TechTown, for the first time, though, not the first time on the show, it's been a minute. Zach Berg, he is the cheesemonger and founder of Mongers Provisions. How are you?

Zach Berg: I'm fantastic! Thank you so much for having me on today.

Jer Staes: Of course, look, anytime that we can talk cheese and tasty things and you have a title with monger in it. I feel like those times when someone, as a kid, is like, "I'm going to pretend that I have a job and I'm going to write out my job title and it's going to be monger and everyone's like, what does that mean?" So what does that mean?

Zach Berg: So the cheesemonger union goes back to the 1400s and it was a third party of tastemakers. This idea that everybody goes to market saying, my cheese is the best, my butter is the best. And so this organization was formed to actually give that mark of approval that, no, this butter is actually top quality. And I think we're doing the same thing to this day.

Jer Staes: And how did you get this title?

Zach Berg: Ooh. Some of it is that I wrote it on my business card, but in all reality, I am a certified cheese professional. That is what the American Cheese Society designates it.

Jer Staes: I love that this exists.

Zach Berg: This does exist. I have had that certification for the last nine plus years, and I've spent almost 18, 20 years of my life selling cheese and telling stories about food producers. It's been a privilege.

Jer Staes: Now, as a certified cheese professional, are you someone who asks questions of the cheese? Do you do you give the cheese tests?

Zach Berg: Do I give the cheese tests? I evaluate cheese. I definitely do that. I've had the privilege of like judging the Good Food Awards and sitting there and tasting some 60 cheeses before lunchtime and deciding what won best in show that year.

Jer Staes: What are two or three of the most important things that you look at when you're evaluating a cheese? Understanding that people's tastes are different, right? Some people love blue cheese, they don't love blue cheese. Some people love this and don't love that. What are what are the two or three things you look at?

Zach Berg: What a great question. You know, I would say the structural integrity, and what I mean by that, is a soft cheese is supposed to be soft as a firm cheese is supposed to be firm. So like maybe stylistic integrity is a better term. You know, there's nothing more disappointing than like cutting open a camembert and it's chalky in the center and firm. That's supposed to be a gooey cheese. I want it to be gooey. And then, you know, deliciousness is not to be missed. I think that there are times where I like to, this is my own delineation, but there's thinking cheese and snacking cheese. Either way, they both have to be delicious. Some is going to make me ponder existence and you know, how beautiful the Alps must be this time of year and some I'm just going to be eating, but they both need to just be good to eat and delicious.

Jer Staes: How do you handle it when there are cheeses that you are judging or thinking about, that are maybe not your favorite.

Zach Berg: Yeah, you know, not exactly a cheese, but I like to talk about olives a lot with the staff. I don't like olives, but I've professionally evaluated hundreds of olives. There is a difference between my preferences and my ability to professionally taste something.

Jer Staes: So you are trained to taste to the standard?

Zach Berg: Yeah, absolutely.

Jer Staes: Fascinating. Cause I think so often in food reviews, I think about social media, whatever, it's the vibes, but the vibes are never described. Right, this place has vibes, but what vibes?

Zach Berg: Totally. I still don't fully understand vibes, I'm coming to realize with my young staff who's like always making the restaurant darker and I'm like, was it too bright?" And they're like, "oh no, no, needs to be darker, darker." I'm like, I just don't see it, but apparently it's part of the vibe creation and I step out of their way and let them do it.

Jer Staes: I think part of the problem is we get older, it's like we literally don't see it. Like, there is, with a restaurant, like I'm all for like dark feeling and romantic and all that. But there is a point when you're over the age of 40 that it starts, 35, 40. I hate to tell these young people, but there's nothing you can do about it.

Zach Berg: No, I'm feeling it.

Jer Staes: Mongers is in Berkeley?

Zach Berg: Yes.

Jer Staes: Downtown Berkeley?

Zach Berg: Downtown Berkeley, right on 12 Mile.

Jer Staes: And you have a somewhat recent concept?

Zach Berg: Yeah, a little over a year old, the Rind. Enter through the cheese shop is one of the things we like to say and it's our restaurant and it is physically connected to our Berkeley retail location.

Jer Staes: So why decide to do a restaurant? Because I know you as you go, you pick up this amazing charcuterie wheel or you know, these great sausages or something like that. Why make the move into the restaurant world?

Zach Berg: To me, it was a big part of expanding these conversations we were already having in the aisles, right? I'd sit there and tell people, Oh, you have to try this tin fish. Open the can, do this, this and this at home, you're going to love it." There's a lot of barriers to getting someone to buy that can, open it, and then make a dish. And so I feel like we are able to invite people to go sit down and open that tin for them. And I think that's powerful. I can actually just put the cheese in your hand or the tin fish and show you how we view all this food.

Jer Staes: So this feels like a different kind of restaurant concept.

Zach Berg: Absolutely. I think it's a really fun blend of neighborhood restaurant while still having some really farm to table vibes. And you know, we're continuing this work that we do where we get to highlight producers and farmers.

Jer Staes: I have a huge soft spot in my heart for the kind of restaurants where it finds a local neighborhood audience, but also it's so good or so interesting, that it's worth going in and exploring that. The reason I go to Berkeley is my vet's in Berkeley. Now there's something plus one I think about with those things. Not that there aren't, there are actually a lot of great reasons to visit Berkeley. Really good thrift shops. There's a Green Lantern Pizza there, I believe.

Zach Berg: There is.

Jer Staes: I'm sure we could shout out some other things that you would know better than I. I just think about what I've been to and driven by. It's a really cool little downtown that I don't think gets enough shine.

Zach Berg: I agree. It's really continuing to grow into itself. It's very fun and it's a really perfect mix of I've lived here for 30 years or I'm a young family moving in. And I think those two parties are getting along, which is unique. Not every community can say that.

Jer Staes: You were on this podcast some years ago during the pandemic. It was actually a riot. Although you were virtual, my entire backyard was covered in cheese. It was absolutely great. I know there are terrible things with the pandemic, but I have, I find joy in the little moments. One of them is virtually having you on a computer while we're recording a tasting in my backyard, so that we could be socially distanced. Literally me and my co-host were for that episode were like 20 ft apart. We had microphone cables running to each other outside, so you could all have this group experience. It was absurd and all the other things were bad. A lot of the other things were bad, but I appreciate that bit of community and making it workness out of all of it. So what have you learned in the years that you have been doing this and maybe something that you learned now that you didn't think you knew.

Zach Berg: So you know, pandemic was a huge unlock for our brand. And there's definitely a bit of survivor's guilt to your point. Like it was so terrible for so many people. And it was really special for us. We got to learn that we could use a box of cheese to connect people from around the country. And so I was very lucky to be on various zoom screens around the country, talking to people and bringing different office groups or different families who didn't get a chance to celebrate together to eat cheese and I learned that I have somewhat of a superpower, that I'm able to kind of create that connection even across a screen and across great distances. And then I also learned when we all came back that people were really tired to zoom and wanted to get back together and be together. And so it's been awesome to pivot back. And you know, when we built out Berkeley, we kind of envisioned this space with the Rind was either going to be a big shipping space or it was going to be a restaurant, depending on how the world went back together. And I'm really thankful to say that we're not using it as a shipping depot and that it's a restaurant.

Jer Staes: A number of people have had difficulty with some of their new concepts and you've been able to find some success with the Rind. Why do you think that is? Is it because it provides something different?

Zach Berg: I think that the different is a piece of it. I think that the location is certainly a piece of it. Berkeley's been so welcoming and I think that we hit a note that didn't exist in that area. So people are like, oh, this is a fun, new restaurant that we really want. I think that was a piece of it. I also, we got lucky. We have a lot of really amazing staff right now. And I think that a big part of what Will and I have been doing is getting out of their way and I think the fact that we recognize that is crucial. You know, we have an incredibly talented chef with Will Bidell. We have a really amazing bar manager and front of the house manager with Kaylani. Isaac has been doing an incredible job picking all the wine for both the restaurant and the retail. We have a buyer. We've just kind of matured as a company. And I think that's been a huge part of why we're where we are.

Jer Staes: One of the key things about leadership, I think, at least in my experience, is knowing what you do best and let others do the rest. So speaking of that, you recently left the Midtown space, which is the space that I knew you as where over the pandemic, I went and picked up things, gifts, absolutely tasty things. And I was very sad to see it, but there there's a bit more to this story because I think there's a lot of talk of, well, if X happened then it had to be Y. I want to ask you, so what happened with the Midtown store over there on Cass? People didn't know that was over by Cass and Canfield near that shopping block over there. Really cool block, really cool businesses that are there and neat place to come down and do, get some gifts and some things like that. But you are no longer there.

Zach Berg: To shout out a couple of the amazing neighbors, Source Books, I mean City Bird is just around the corner. It's a really incredible block. And like many blocks, it changed through pandemic and we lost a lot of the amazing neighbors in that area, but that's not why we left and it was, you know, I love what you said about kind of the X and Y. I have been really fond of saying closing isn't failing. I don't think we failed that location, but I think it needed to continue to evolve and that we needed to step out of the way for that evolution. We still feel so strongly that that community needs a cheese shop. And we're so proud that that's going to continue. We also felt like the owners needed to be present and it just wasn't something Will and I were able to do with our relatively young families and the demands that the Berkeley location was having on us. And so we're so thrilled that Jenika and Patrick are going to be taking it over. They're coming from what was called Jenika Charcuterie and now is going to be called Hosted Detroit. And so there's still going to be amazing cheese, chocolate and charcuterie in that exact location and we're really proud that it's going to be a black-owned, woman-owned cheese shop in the heart of Detroit. And so we're doing a little mentoring, kind of making sure that they know who their suppliers are. I got to teach a little cheese 101 class to them, which was really fun for me. And yeah, we're fully committed to their success.

Jer Staes: I love that. I love the idea of businesses not looking at it and everything, of course, there's a competitive element, but there is a co-opetition element there. There's a support element. I think about the brand strength that a place like Zingerman's has built by teaching others and how powerful that could be.

Zach Berg: Us included. Ari is still one of my closest mentors at Zingerman's. I still call him for a lot of things.

Jer Staes: Oh, so you are connected to them.

Zach Berg: Yeah, I am from the Zingerman's Alumni Group. I worked there for about two years before culinary school and I am lucky that they still answer all my calls and I go on trips with them and things like that. So it's it's really important.

Jer Staes: Outside of the technical bits, in a more general sense, what is something that you took out of that Zingerman's experience?

Zach Berg: I mean sampling, we sample from day one kind of Zingerman's because it creates this air of generosity. All this food is so expensive. No one has any illusions that it's not. To give someone the food up front, have the conversation and make that the focal point and not the price tag, I think is incredibly powerful and also we get to enjoy it together. It's reciprocal. I get to see you smile about it and I think that we did it when we opened day one and I would never think of doing otherwise and that was a Zingerman's idea.

Jer Staes: In recent years, I've been really trying to go on a health journey and eat better. Part of eating better, I've learned is not about getting rid of everything you like. It's about spending and focusing on the things that actually give you joy. And that is really changed my view around food in general and even saying, is it worth it to spend a few extra bucks on this thing or that thing that I really enjoy but not spend money on things that are just filling or just the basics, right? If there's the basics then go with whole foods. Go go get the vegetables. Go get really good green peppers or whatever, but if you're going to splurge, do it right as opposed to the difference between and not to besmirch anybody's choices, but the difference between spending $6 on a pizza and $20 something dollars on a pizza is gigantic if you go to the right places and if you think about spending that money wisely as not just food but also joy.

Zach Berg: I couldn't agree more. I've been on a similar journey this year and it's been so strange, I would say for me to like go from knowing the farmer and what the cow is eating to like what's the macronutrients of this piece of cheese and I've been finding that to be a struggle, but I agree. I think that we show up to be satiated. And so often with the food system, we're not getting satiated with what we showed up for. I often talk about the chocolate bars because we have a wonderful selection of being to bar chocolate, craft chocolate. And when you open up a Hershey bar and you get 14% cacao, when what you wanted was chocolate, I think it hits your brain so much differently than getting 50% chocolate and you know, I think there's a lot more satisfaction and you don't need a second chocolate bar more often.

Jer Staes: A lesson I learned in this was I love salty things, but I have to be very careful. What I didn't realize was that many of the things that taste salty actually don't have that much salt in them. I cut out things like the jarred salsa, where you're like, oh it's salsa, it's tomatoes. It's actually awful for you, except for some of the fresher. Like there's some fresher brands out there. We've had like Aunt Nee's on the show before, cuz you look at that it's literally half the salt of some of the other things you'll find on the store shelf. You don't miss it because there's so much salt in the preservative. But I can have so much joy with my favorite dark sea salt caramel with the salt flex because it's just a tiny amount of salt, but I'm sensing and feeling that salt a lot more than I was in the pre-pack.

Zach Berg: Yeah, sugar and salt are two of the most common preservatives and they're loading it in our food. It's really, I was listening to someone talk about the sugar content of a hamburger bun the other day and it's not something you would think about. You're just going to get, thinking it's just like a piece of bread, but it's if that bread exists on a grocery store shelf for a month, it is no longer just a piece of bread.

Jer Staes: Recently, I picked up a loaf of Avalon bread because that was what at the store. I was like, all right, I'm going to go up and go up a level with this. I don't think I can go back to the other stuff because it was such a huge difference. Well, speaking of differences, what were in your experiences, the differences between dealing with the Midtown store and the Berkeley store and operating in those two environments?

Zach Berg: From my own career experience, I when I was living in San Francisco, I was on a team that opened up a second store of By Rate market. And we went from the mission to the Divisadero area and it was night and day. And so I knew going in, okay, these are going to be different customers, different things and it still was so humbling how different they were. I would say Detroit was much more into the hype and what I mean by that is like brands that are all over Instagram, the Detroit customers are like, oh, where's Fish Wife? We want to see Fish Wife. I want that fly by gin. Detroit was plugged in. Berkeley doesn't seem to have that same like, I just saw this, I need to have it. Berkeley is happy to let us do that curation where Detroit had desires.

Jer Staes: Because I hear so often people have different interpretations of this and to hear that the in Detroit it was far more about that like that national or that social brand, that is fascinating.

Zach Berg: And I think that has a lot to do with who was walking into that store, you know? We get kids from the university or individuals from the university. I don't need to call them kids, but young adults. I think also the staff there was generally younger and more into that. Detroit did a good job at selling the weirder stuff also. Stinkier cheese, more natural wine and Berkeley, we like to hang on some name recognition with our wine and not all natural wine.

Jer Staes: What is a natural wine?

Zach Berg: Thank you for asking. It's both new and a very old concept. Low intervention is a better way to say it. So natural wine is this category of wine that's growing where they've intervened less and sulfates I think is probably the thing people think about the most often, but even filtering a wine or doing a number of various processes. There's about 17 or 19 things you can put in a bottle of wine that don't have to be on the label, which is kind of concerning, I would say. Some of the examples are like, I believe it's super purple. If you have a really rich colored wine in this big Napa category, it probably has some food coloring in it and that's why it's so rich and purple. Natural wine is a rejection of that industrialization of wine and making it like your grandfather did.

Jer Staes: Fascinating. And it's it's cool because it also represents a wider swath of the world, right? I think that where natural wines become very popular is the places that are still making wine like their grandparents did because there isn't the industry. So Georgia, Slovenia, parts of Greece. There's some really beautiful wines coming out of there that are the top of that world, but didn't get as much airtime when you're competing with France, Italy, Spain, historically.

Jer Staes: Are there general tasting notes that go with a more natural wine or does it matter depending on which one you're drinking?

Zach Berg: No, there's definitely some natural. There's some natural funkiness to it. People, I think especially in the early days of natural wine, some of the more wild flavors, you'll hear people talk about cider, tasting like apple cider or kombucha, you taste a little bit wilder ferment. I also think variability is a big part of natural wine. One bottle might not taste like the next bottle within that batch because you're not putting as much preservatives and things like that in it. You know, I always think about that even with cheese. People really have an expectation that the wedge I bought is going to taste like the next wedge and I don't celebrate that as much as some people do. Budweiser's always Budweiser. It's really incredible what they've done. I think that's kind of boring. I like the fact that each wheel is a little different and has some seasonal variation.

Jer Staes: And to create that consistency in a packaged good requires an amount of processes and additives and such that you're paying a price in other ways.

Zach Berg: Absolutely. I think that's really well said. I would rather taste the variations than do that.

Jer Staes: I would. Although I will fully cards on table. I will occasionally go to Starbucks. Why? Because I that one drink that I just want and I'm okay with that. I'm okay with having a foot in both worlds and I don't judge.

Zach Berg: Yes.

Jer Staes: I think food should be accessible not just sure, there's different price concerns, but also I don't like to shame people for the thing that they really like it is the salted caramel cold brew that I really like at Starbucks and once a month, once every I break down and I go, cuz I enjoy that one thing, but that doesn't make me that I'm not as interested in like I spend most of my money at local coffee shops. I like to get Craig's Coffee sells beans at the co-op, all that other stuff. Sometimes I just want that really special that one thing.

Zach Berg: Holding two things in our head to be true at the same time is like a really important practice nowadays. And I think it's really. It's I feel like we lost it with the internet.

Jer Staes: It's so important because that nuance is where the joy is, the gray is where the joy is. For 2025, looking ahead here, what are you thinking about for Mongers and for the Rind? What are your kind of thoughts for this year?

Zach Berg: Yeah, I'm really focused on gathering people together. We're kind of taking the momentum of pandemic. We did so many tastings, virtual, in person, how to build a board. They're really fun, but I wanted to diversify the reasons we gathered people. Last year we did a bunch of what I called community tastings. They were a low price point just on an afternoon to get people in the door. And this year we're doing things like a bourbon dinner or book clubs where we're going to gather around and talk about a book and a tasting that supports it. We have an Armenian wine dinner coming up. We have simple syrup class with Kaylani, getting more than just my voice to gather people around. Isaac's teaching wine classes. Kaylani's teaching cocktail classes. I'm filling in the blanks. And I think it's just it's so much fun and I think that we have a restaurant. Of course, you can just gather around lunch and dinner, but we need to get people to actually see the space and so these different modalities has been really fun as a way to drive traffic.

Jer Staes: And what should people be trying in the cheese world in 2025?

Zach Berg: What a great question. What should people be So on a domestic level, I find the South to be fascinating right now, you know, we don't think of the South southern part of America as having like the greatest cheese culture historically, but what they do have is a lot of the sunshine and grass. And therefore you have some really good milk, right? And so the southern cheese guild, which comprises many states is doing some really cool things. Sequatchi Grove in Tennessee, out of Virginia, Meadow Creek Creamery, we've had a lot of really good stuff from the South. Sweet Grass Dairy in Georgia. I think is currently on our counter right now. It's been awesome to see those cheeses. On an international level, what should you be looking for? You know, I think that this exploration of cheeses you're not as familiar with is really fun. Everybody's had Manchego. I'm not trying to take anything away from Manchego. The country of Spain makes more than Manchego and I think that you know, even if you think of Switzerland where they kind of state funded four cheeses historically, uh Grier still sits there, Appenzeller probably, state funded the cheeses? Yes, they those cheeses got how would I say? There was a cheese consortium and most of the money to kind of push Swiss cheese fell into those four cheeses. And I think that that's why most people know what Grier is, but if you haven't had Chällerhocker yet, you should try Chällerhocker. It's an incredible cheese made by an Appenzeller producer we've carried for years.

Jer Staes: Why do I want to have a Chällerhocker with some chala?

Zach Berg: Chällerhocker. It's meant to be. We actually make the pretty potatoes at the Rind. You use Chällerhocker cheese whiz where I feel like chef crawled into my brain and knew that that was a long-term fantasy of mine. And now we spray Chällerhocker whiz on our potatoes and it's incredible.

Jer Staes: With Chällerhocker, Chällerhocker Wiz. That's where I want to leave things. Zach, so good to talk to you. People want to come visit, what can they do?

Zach Berg: So come by. We're open for lunch and dinner now at the Rind. Lunch is Tuesday through Sunday from 11:00 till 4:00. Dinner is Wednesday through Saturday from 5:00 to 9:00. The bar stays open a little extra on Friday and Saturdays. Come by, make a reservation if it's the weekend. Otherwise just come on in. We're usually available. We'd love to feed you. We'd love to talk food, cheese, chocolate, charcuterie, life, philosophy, whatever it is. We can't wait to feed you and we're just so excited to be there.

Jer Staes: Thanks for listening and thanks to our members on Patreon for making this possible, Patreon.com/DailyDetroit. That's patreon.com/DailyDetroit. Local media requires local support. You know, it really does make a difference as we don't get paid to interview these people. They don't they don't pay us to be on here. This is something where we are supported by our community to talk about our community. I'm Jer Staes. Until tomorrow, remember that you are somebody, and I'll see you around Detroit.