November 28, 2023 • 12 mins
The story of The Cheese Queen begins with deeply rooted family traditions. Growing up, my family owned a multi-generational grocery market dated all the way back to 1946. For years, I cherished Sunday trips gallivanting around the city with my Grandmother to visit all of her favorite specialty shops. And that’s where my story began. I learned my love of Charcuterie from that Queen, and boy was she something special! Oh, the spreads of cheese, meats, pickled veggies she would put together brought people from far and near. Following her example, as a young adult, I landed a job in the Specialty Meats and Cheese section of the family business where I grew my expertise even further, tasting, experimenting, and discovering different pairings and all of the latest trends. Enter: The Cheese Queen. Priceless lessons from my Grandmother continued to carry on through my life. She taught me you don’t need fancy, complicated recipes - just good food made with fresh, quality ingredients and a whole lot of love. And that’s exactly what you’re going to get from me. Delicious, hand-picked, fresh, and custom curations especially for you - every order, big or small - is handled with care and made with love from me to you.
https://www.thecheesequeen412.com/
https://www.thecheesequeen412.com/
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Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
And welcome in. This is theCEOs You Should Know podcast. I'm your
host, Johnny hurt Well. Let'ssay hello to Meghan McGinnis. Thank you
for joining me, Thank you forhaving me. All Right, tell us
everything we need to know about theCheese Queen. We are a charcoutery company
and we have a storefront and montOliver. We do grazing tables, charcouterie
boards, charcouterie boxes and you canfind us on Facebook, Instagram and at
(00:29):
the Cheese Queen four one two dotcom. All right, so where did
this all start? So I wasactually getting ready to start a different business.
I was going to start an eventplanning business and it was going to
be called Celebrations by Megan McGinnis.And I turned forty, I had my
daughter and COVID hit. Obviously therewas no events, so I shifted and
(00:51):
pivoted my business and I became theCheese Queen Pittsburgh on December fifth. All
Right, to tell us about thename, The Cheese Queen came from my
family. Actually, I grew upin the specialty grocery industry with my family,
the McGinnis family, and I lovecheese from the very beginning. As
a five year old. My momwas actually the cheese buyer, and she
(01:15):
was the cheese cutter, and sheran the cheese department, and I was
like her little sidekick, standing ontop of on top of a milk cart.
All right, so are you thecheese queen? I am the cheese
man. I am the cheese queen. So and I continued working with my
family all the way through up throughlife, and I was the specially grocery
(01:36):
buyer, and I was also thespecialty cheese buyer for our businesses. And
uh, my employees just it justcarried on. They called me the cheese
queen. All right, So doyou have a like does the queen have
a court? Do you have doyou have like a throne? Do you
have what? What does the queen, the cheese queen have. No,
we don't have any thrones. Wedon't have you don't have a palace or
(01:59):
no, we don't have No,we don't have any of that. So
if we go to the storefront orthe website, what am I going to
find there? You are going tofind that you can order charcuterie boards,
you can order charcuterie boxes. Wealso do grazing tables. That's something new
to Pittsburgh and what is a taste. So what we do is we come
(02:22):
to your home or we come toyour events space. We do a ton
of weddings, and we come andwe actually set up a grazing table where
your guests can kind of graze throughoutwith cheeses, meats, accompaniments. We
really focus on the pairings that areon those tables, and it's kind of
like a new way of eating appetizers. So what's what's on the what's on
(02:46):
a like a normal or the customarycharcuterie board. What do we have?
You will have your cheeses and meats. We use gourmet cheeses and we use
European cheeses. You'll also have yourdifferent meats like purshudaus, super soft pershutos,
super soda, more to dell.We use a lot of Italian meats
(03:08):
and Spanish meats. And then you'llhave your pairings, which would be your
fruits, your pickled veggies, yourhoney, your jams, your mustards.
Our cardboard is on the st ourcarbs are on the side. We don't
put those on the board so theycan stay fresh. So it would be
the crackers in the in the artisanbreads, and we use a lot of
(03:28):
local we we deal with a lotof local people. All right, take
me back, So during the COVIDand you're thinking about doing this and you
came up with the cheese queen,do you remember your first sale? I
do remember my first sale. SoI actually I just was trying to I
started the business with something called amini box, and I was just delivering
(03:51):
it around to people that I knewto kind of bring them joy during during
a tough time during COVID, becausethat nobody could go anywhere or have a
date night or do anything. SoI kind of was just giving those away
for free. And then I justkept getting people asking me for more and
more orders. So I had tofind myself a commissary kitchen to work out
(04:11):
of. So my first, myfirst big order, I will say,
probably was Valentine's Day of that year. Yeah, what is your what is
the hot ticket? What is theone thing that everybody likes? What's what's
your number one seller? My numberone seller, I would say, would
be our grazing tables are one ofour number one sellers. We've done a
(04:35):
ton of weddings, a ton ofdifferent events. Business events also a close
second. We do gourmet artists andsandwiches with amazing cheese is European. They're
kind of like a spin on Europeansandwiches. So we have one that's called
The Queen and it is on SeaSalt Facca, and we use a lot
(05:00):
a bakery for that, Brown BearBread Bakery. They're right down the street
from my shop and mont Oliver Andthen we put bri on there with perscudo
with a local sweet onion jam fromour dear friends at Batch and Sach killing
her, You're killing me. Youmake it real, live and all the
things. You know that it's funny. You know, I've been going to
weddings for a long long time andyou're really starting to see that almost explode.
(05:25):
Yes, it is, it's definitelyexploding. We are actually starting to
book already for twenty twenty four.I have some dates that are already booked
up for that, and I'm startingto book for twenty twenty five. What's
really cool about the grazing tables isit's the experience that your guests get because
every time they go back to thetable, they're getting to taste some different
(05:46):
flavors and some different things together andit kind of takes them on like a
little foody journey. Do you doboxes for individuals as well? I do.
We haven't something called an adult lunchible. So dude, what do you
get inside? So what you getinside is you get two cheeses, you
get a meat, you get somefruits, whatever accompaniments that we choose that
(06:13):
go along with that. We,like I said, we focus on the
pairings. So if we're it wouldbe two cheeses and a meat and then
some pairings that go with that.And it comes in do you do you
do you ever pair anything with wine? Do you have a Do you have
anything that is that is connected witha winery at all? I do?
So I work with two wineries atthe moment, Repeppe Winery. They're local,
(06:35):
they're out in mononga Hala, andI also work with J and D
Winery out by the meadows. Sohow big of an organization has the Cheese
Queen become? We are a smallbusiness. We're definitely a small business.
I'm looking to expand coming up herein the new year. I have some
really fabulous ideas I can't reveal toyou ya. Come on, why listen.
(07:00):
Listen, it's just between you andme. I promise I won't tell
anything. Give us, give usa little taste of what you're talking about.
So when I started the business,I wanted my business to grow organically
and grow with me and also growwhere I am in mont Oliver because mont
Oliver is uh, you know,it's it's a it's an area that needs
revitalized. I'm also part of thatrevitalization team, and I also help new
(07:23):
businesses get started up there and we'rereally working hard to make that strip something
really fantastic for Pittsburgher's give me anothersnapshot of your because you said, you
know the specially the McGuinness sisters,right, yes, yeah, So so
what did you learn going through theprocess of the family business. I definitely
(07:46):
learned customer service obviously and how totreat customers. But another thing is just
the quality and also the how tosupport local businesses as well as when you're
doing what your your specialty is.And we actually, I mean we pioneered
that specialty food movement here. Imissed it. I missed your your grocery
(08:07):
store so much because I love goingin. There was always, you know,
something different in there that you wouldn'tget at the you know, the
big store. So yeah, doyou miss it? I miss it so
much. And I miss my employeesthat I worked with. I miss our
customers. Some of our customers arenow my customers. They've you know,
(08:28):
they can come to me and getsome good quality of what they expect,
you know, from my family whenwe were open. But yeah, I
miss it very much. What isyour biggest challenge as being the cheese Queen?
My biggest challenge is we're very busyand I don't like to say no
to customers. So my biggest challengeis trying to balance the business because it's
(08:54):
really taking off. So in thein the future, in twenty twenty four,
I'm going to expand a little bit, all right. So if somebody
is going to order a charcuterie ora grazing table or something like that,
do you need time? Obviously youneed time. You can't just throw it
(09:15):
almost because you know, because charcuterieis really turned into a work of art.
It is a work of art.And that's why a lot of times
customers will say to me, doyou have a picture of that board or
do you have a picture of whatyour Christmas offerings are going to be.
And I don't have a picture becauseit's it's the way. It's an or,
it's an art, it's how we'redesigning at that moment. Every one
(09:37):
is a little different. Everyone isa little bit different, and you know,
we pride ourselves on on that.No board is the same. And
what about the future. Where doyou want to see the cheese queen?
I want to be the one stopshop, you know, for the South
Hills for cheese's, artists and meatsand also local. All right, so
(10:01):
when you say local, where doyou want to see your community? Where
do you want to see it?How do you think it should where do
you where do you think it needshelp? We need to get some some
some more businesses in our in ourstrip right there. I kind of catalyst.
I was a catalyst for that Istarted. I was one of the
(10:22):
only businesses there besides maybe twenty,which is really not when you think about
it, that's not a lot ofbusinesses and bringing new, fun and exciting
businesses to our to our community upin Mount Oliver, in Allentown. How
far do you deliver or do youlet's say, somebody's getting married in Cranberry
(10:46):
or Butler County or Union Town.Do you do you have to travel and
put the together that that tech grazingboard. Yep, we travel and we
put that together right on site.But we do travel and we've done,
we've done, We've traveled. Weddingvenues you know, they're everywhere, right,
so you've got to you've got totravel to those. And then if
you order from us on a smallerscale, we make those in house.
(11:11):
But we will also if it's ifit's out of a certain mile radius,
we will travel and we will putit together on site. All right,
So tell us everything we might seeon your website. On my website,
you will see our different offerings,which would be event offerings. I also
teach charcouterie classes. Yeah, Ipartner with other great local businesses and I
(11:35):
do different things shopping events at myat my little shop. I also do
different cooking classes inside of my insideof my shop as well with other local
uh local artisan cooks and different thingschefs and things. And then we you
(11:56):
will also see our boards. Youwill see our boxes, you will see
our catering menu, you will seeour artists and sandwiches. You will see
our grazing table, an event,an event menu, and all of those
great and also my story. I'mreally proud of it. The website is
The Cheese Queen four one two dotcom. Megan McGinnis, the Cheese Queen
(12:18):
and a CEO you Should Know.Megan, thank you so much, Oh
my gosh, thank you. Thishas been the CEOs You Should Know podcast,
showcasing businesses that are driving our regionaleconomy, part of iHeartMedia's commitment to
the communities we serve. Johnny Heartwell, thank you so much for listening.
And welcome in. This is theCEOs You Should Know podcast. I'm your
host, Johnny hurt Well. Let'ssay hello to Meghan McGinnis. Thank you
for joining me, Thank you forhaving me. All Right, tell us
everything we need to know about theCheese Queen. We are a charcoutery company
and we have a storefront and montOliver. We do grazing tables, charcouterie
boards, charcouterie boxes and you canfind us on Facebook, Instagram and at
(00:29):
the Cheese Queen four one two dotcom. All right, so where did
this all start? So I wasactually getting ready to start a different business.
I was going to start an eventplanning business and it was going to
be called Celebrations by Megan McGinnis.And I turned forty, I had my
daughter and COVID hit. Obviously therewas no events, so I shifted and
(00:51):
pivoted my business and I became theCheese Queen Pittsburgh on December fifth. All
Right, to tell us about thename, The Cheese Queen came from my
family. Actually, I grew upin the specialty grocery industry with my family,
the McGinnis family, and I lovecheese from the very beginning. As
a five year old. My momwas actually the cheese buyer, and she
(01:15):
was the cheese cutter, and sheran the cheese department, and I was
like her little sidekick, standing ontop of on top of a milk cart.
All right, so are you thecheese queen? I am the cheese
man. I am the cheese queen. So and I continued working with my
family all the way through up throughlife, and I was the specially grocery
(01:36):
buyer, and I was also thespecialty cheese buyer for our businesses. And
uh, my employees just it justcarried on. They called me the cheese
queen. All right, So doyou have a like does the queen have
a court? Do you have doyou have like a throne? Do you
have what? What does the queen, the cheese queen have. No,
we don't have any thrones. Wedon't have you don't have a palace or
(01:59):
no, we don't have No,we don't have any of that. So
if we go to the storefront orthe website, what am I going to
find there? You are going tofind that you can order charcuterie boards,
you can order charcuterie boxes. Wealso do grazing tables. That's something new
to Pittsburgh and what is a taste. So what we do is we come
(02:22):
to your home or we come toyour events space. We do a ton
of weddings, and we come andwe actually set up a grazing table where
your guests can kind of graze throughoutwith cheeses, meats, accompaniments. We
really focus on the pairings that areon those tables, and it's kind of
like a new way of eating appetizers. So what's what's on the what's on
(02:46):
a like a normal or the customarycharcuterie board. What do we have?
You will have your cheeses and meats. We use gourmet cheeses and we use
European cheeses. You'll also have yourdifferent meats like purshudaus, super soft pershutos,
super soda, more to dell.We use a lot of Italian meats
(03:08):
and Spanish meats. And then you'llhave your pairings, which would be your
fruits, your pickled veggies, yourhoney, your jams, your mustards.
Our cardboard is on the st ourcarbs are on the side. We don't
put those on the board so theycan stay fresh. So it would be
the crackers in the in the artisanbreads, and we use a lot of
(03:28):
local we we deal with a lotof local people. All right, take
me back, So during the COVIDand you're thinking about doing this and you
came up with the cheese queen,do you remember your first sale? I
do remember my first sale. SoI actually I just was trying to I
started the business with something called amini box, and I was just delivering
(03:51):
it around to people that I knewto kind of bring them joy during during
a tough time during COVID, becausethat nobody could go anywhere or have a
date night or do anything. SoI kind of was just giving those away
for free. And then I justkept getting people asking me for more and
more orders. So I had tofind myself a commissary kitchen to work out
(04:11):
of. So my first, myfirst big order, I will say,
probably was Valentine's Day of that year. Yeah, what is your what is
the hot ticket? What is theone thing that everybody likes? What's what's
your number one seller? My numberone seller, I would say, would
be our grazing tables are one ofour number one sellers. We've done a
(04:35):
ton of weddings, a ton ofdifferent events. Business events also a close
second. We do gourmet artists andsandwiches with amazing cheese is European. They're
kind of like a spin on Europeansandwiches. So we have one that's called
The Queen and it is on SeaSalt Facca, and we use a lot
(05:00):
a bakery for that, Brown BearBread Bakery. They're right down the street
from my shop and mont Oliver Andthen we put bri on there with perscudo
with a local sweet onion jam fromour dear friends at Batch and Sach killing
her, You're killing me. Youmake it real, live and all the
things. You know that it's funny. You know, I've been going to
weddings for a long long time andyou're really starting to see that almost explode.
(05:25):
Yes, it is, it's definitelyexploding. We are actually starting to
book already for twenty twenty four.I have some dates that are already booked
up for that, and I'm startingto book for twenty twenty five. What's
really cool about the grazing tables isit's the experience that your guests get because
every time they go back to thetable, they're getting to taste some different
(05:46):
flavors and some different things together andit kind of takes them on like a
little foody journey. Do you doboxes for individuals as well? I do.
We haven't something called an adult lunchible. So dude, what do you
get inside? So what you getinside is you get two cheeses, you
get a meat, you get somefruits, whatever accompaniments that we choose that
(06:13):
go along with that. We,like I said, we focus on the
pairings. So if we're it wouldbe two cheeses and a meat and then
some pairings that go with that.And it comes in do you do you
do you ever pair anything with wine? Do you have a Do you have
anything that is that is connected witha winery at all? I do?
So I work with two wineries atthe moment, Repeppe Winery. They're local,
(06:35):
they're out in mononga Hala, andI also work with J and D
Winery out by the meadows. Sohow big of an organization has the Cheese
Queen become? We are a smallbusiness. We're definitely a small business.
I'm looking to expand coming up herein the new year. I have some
really fabulous ideas I can't reveal toyou ya. Come on, why listen.
(07:00):
Listen, it's just between you andme. I promise I won't tell
anything. Give us, give usa little taste of what you're talking about.
So when I started the business,I wanted my business to grow organically
and grow with me and also growwhere I am in mont Oliver because mont
Oliver is uh, you know,it's it's a it's an area that needs
revitalized. I'm also part of thatrevitalization team, and I also help new
(07:23):
businesses get started up there and we'rereally working hard to make that strip something
really fantastic for Pittsburgher's give me anothersnapshot of your because you said, you
know the specially the McGuinness sisters,right, yes, yeah, So so
what did you learn going through theprocess of the family business. I definitely
(07:46):
learned customer service obviously and how totreat customers. But another thing is just
the quality and also the how tosupport local businesses as well as when you're
doing what your your specialty is.And we actually, I mean we pioneered
that specialty food movement here. Imissed it. I missed your your grocery
(08:07):
store so much because I love goingin. There was always, you know,
something different in there that you wouldn'tget at the you know, the
big store. So yeah, doyou miss it? I miss it so
much. And I miss my employeesthat I worked with. I miss our
customers. Some of our customers arenow my customers. They've you know,
(08:28):
they can come to me and getsome good quality of what they expect,
you know, from my family whenwe were open. But yeah, I
miss it very much. What isyour biggest challenge as being the cheese Queen?
My biggest challenge is we're very busyand I don't like to say no
to customers. So my biggest challengeis trying to balance the business because it's
(08:54):
really taking off. So in thein the future, in twenty twenty four,
I'm going to expand a little bit, all right. So if somebody
is going to order a charcuterie ora grazing table or something like that,
do you need time? Obviously youneed time. You can't just throw it
(09:15):
almost because you know, because charcuterieis really turned into a work of art.
It is a work of art.And that's why a lot of times
customers will say to me, doyou have a picture of that board or
do you have a picture of whatyour Christmas offerings are going to be.
And I don't have a picture becauseit's it's the way. It's an or,
it's an art, it's how we'redesigning at that moment. Every one
(09:37):
is a little different. Everyone isa little bit different, and you know,
we pride ourselves on on that.No board is the same. And
what about the future. Where doyou want to see the cheese queen?
I want to be the one stopshop, you know, for the South
Hills for cheese's, artists and meatsand also local. All right, so
(10:01):
when you say local, where doyou want to see your community? Where
do you want to see it?How do you think it should where do
you where do you think it needshelp? We need to get some some
some more businesses in our in ourstrip right there. I kind of catalyst.
I was a catalyst for that Istarted. I was one of the
(10:22):
only businesses there besides maybe twenty,which is really not when you think about
it, that's not a lot ofbusinesses and bringing new, fun and exciting
businesses to our to our community upin Mount Oliver, in Allentown. How
far do you deliver or do youlet's say, somebody's getting married in Cranberry
(10:46):
or Butler County or Union Town.Do you do you have to travel and
put the together that that tech grazingboard. Yep, we travel and we
put that together right on site.But we do travel and we've done,
we've done, We've traveled. Weddingvenues you know, they're everywhere, right,
so you've got to you've got totravel to those. And then if
you order from us on a smallerscale, we make those in house.
(11:11):
But we will also if it's ifit's out of a certain mile radius,
we will travel and we will putit together on site. All right,
So tell us everything we might seeon your website. On my website,
you will see our different offerings,which would be event offerings. I also
teach charcouterie classes. Yeah, Ipartner with other great local businesses and I
(11:35):
do different things shopping events at myat my little shop. I also do
different cooking classes inside of my insideof my shop as well with other local
uh local artisan cooks and different thingschefs and things. And then we you
(11:56):
will also see our boards. Youwill see our boxes, you will see
our catering menu, you will seeour artists and sandwiches. You will see
our grazing table, an event,an event menu, and all of those
great and also my story. I'mreally proud of it. The website is
The Cheese Queen four one two dotcom. Megan McGinnis, the Cheese Queen
(12:18):
and a CEO you Should Know.Megan, thank you so much, Oh
my gosh, thank you. Thishas been the CEOs You Should Know podcast,
showcasing businesses that are driving our regionaleconomy, part of iHeartMedia's commitment to
the communities we serve. Johnny Heartwell, thank you so much for listening.
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