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Murray's Cheese Shop Restaurant Opens for Business

By DNAinfo Staff on July 25, 2012 5:04pm

By Alexander Hotz

Special to DNAinfo.com New York

WEST VILLAGE — Murray’s Cheese Shop, one of the New York’s oldest and most iconic specialty cheese retailers, is getting into the restaurant business.

Murray’s Cheese Bar at 254 Bleecker St., which opens Wednesday night a few doors down from the West Village shop, boasts a mouth-watering array of cheese-topped meats, pastas, melts, salads and desserts.

All of the 40 different types of cheese used at the restaurant will come from store's own collection, officials said.

Owner Rob Kaufelt bought Murray’s Cheese Shop in 1991, and has since moved the famous store twice, according to Grub Street. Today his cheese empire has expanded with a distribution center in Queens and even subterranean caves under the store.

"The Cheese Bar is another place for us to showcase these cheeses," Kaufelt said in an email. "Our selection will change daily depending on what is ripe and ready to enjoy."

For his latest project, Kaufelt poached Tia Keenan from Caselulla wine and cheese bar to become the restaurant’s chef fromager or "cheese whiz," Murrays reps said Wednesday. She has organized the menu into sections like Dunk, Griddle, Fry and Spread. Although this is the pair's first joint venture Kaufelt hinted at a future restaurants down the road.

In addition to traditional meals some of the shop’s most popular cheeses and dried meats, which it collects from around the world, can be sampled in flights. The Cheese Bar will also feature an extensive wine, beer and cider list. There’ll even be kombucha on tap.