A Rediscovered Small Town and The Winter Haven Cheese Room
A Rediscovered Small Town and The Winter Haven Cheese Room
On a recent trip to Florida, I made a detour to see my aunt in Winter Haven, just South of Orlando. Winter Haven, once the home of the World Famous Cypress Gardens Theme Park, is a small town surrounded by the orange groves that provide you with your morning dose of Tropicana as well as a few small famous lakes that are really only known to its residents. I think at one time, it was more of a destination for snowbirds, hence the name, Winter Haven, however it seems that its population hasn’t changed much from the the snowbirds who came and decided to stay. Although it was reinvigorated a few years ago when Cypress Gardens closed and then was taken over by the more well-known, Legoland. But the Legoland-ites usually hit the park, and then the adjacent Publix supermarket for a final snack to appease their overly exhausted children for the long drive back to their Disney hotel.
This is and has been my impression of Winter Haven since I first started coming here in the 90’s after my aunt moved North to escape the craziness of Miami 20 years ago. I never liked Winter Haven all that much and the only attraction, and one that barely qualifies anyway, was Bok Tower, a lone standing tower in the middle of nowhere, and its botanical gardens that never seemed to be in bloom thanks to the Florida heat.
So when on this recent trip, my mother asked me to go visit her sister, I agreed but with only the lowest expectations in mind. I would meet her for dinner at either a mediocre local place or we’d hit up the local Olive Garden, a treat as those don’t exist in Hawaii. And I was fine with that as the point was to see my family, not to fill the MarnaMaria Instagram feed.
When many people think of Florida certain words and places come to mind. Miami, the beach, Orlando, Disney, retirees. And yes, those things most certainly exist here. But in actuality, Florida has a ton more to offer if you just look a bit. (My family has figured this out after coming here for vacations for the last 20 years to see our family. We had to figure out how to turn the same destination into different vacations because buying five plane tickets from Hawaii to Florida each year to see the relatives doesn’t leave a lot of cash on hand to go anywhere else. But in my mother's words, "It's family, you go.")
Florida, for all intents in purposes, is the South. There are beautiful homes, small quaint towns, antiques, mom and pop restaurants, small shops, secret beaches, winding deserted roads, hunting, animals, airboats, wildlife, rednecks, culture, languages, gastronomy you name it! And best of all, the weather is generally good!
However, once you leave the larger cities of Miami and Orlando, the scenery changes and you see that the state really is made up of long two lane roads with small towns dotted every once in a while. These storybook towns are like the ones that you see in Hallmark Christmas movies with one of everything: a post office, a grocery, a hardware store, a mechanic, a diner slash coffee shop, and if you are a lucky, a bakery, wine or cheese shop thrown in. All of which are covered in hanging Spanish moss, colorful flowers, and green grass to add the idyllic motif. These are the small towns of Florida and they are not to miss!
So you can imagine my surprise when my aunt, while killing an hour before dinner, she suggested that we drive to the old part of Winter Haven. Winter Haven, in fact, and much to my surprise, is an old Florida town. It’s small, beautiful, quaint, friendly, all the things you’d expect it to be. There is a streetlamp lit main street, a couple of cafés, an art exhibit in the park. Down a bit further you’ll find the original Publix grocery store, a family owned hardware, and surprisingly enough, a small cheese shop.
So I should insert here two caveats, 1. I love cheese and 2. What is a cheese shop doing in Winter Haven?
We parked and went to check it out. (On the way from the parking to the shop, my aunt ran into a friend, just another testament to the size of this community.)
The Cheese Room is a small tucked away gem just off the main street filled with small producer products including wines, jams and jellies, teas, mustards, sweets, beautiful slate cheese boards, cheese knives, books, and of course a lovely selection of cheese. Sherry, the owner, chooses each cheese herself, trying to find the perfect balance of items her clients are looking for but also with the goal of pushing them a little bit out of their comfort zone. The closest gourmet cheese shop around besides her is Whole Foods, an hour away, and their semi-industrial options there have nothing on her unique and carefully hand picked selection.
Her cheeses vary by country, milk, age, and texture, variances that let you pinpoint the perfect one for you. She has samples on the counter, we tried an Wensleydale soft blueberry number, but you can taste anything you like with each cheese acting like a path to your new favorite discovery.
Her case was filled with wheels ranging from a creamy triple cream brie to the more firm and basically impossible to melt Haloomi, with series of options in between.
We tried a several including an Emmental Swiss, a cow’s milk Toma, and the Dutch goat Midnight Moon, before finally settling on the appropriately named, Drunken Goat, a goat cheese with a deep purple rind thanks to its soak in the red juice and as well the English Red Dragon Cheddar with mustard and ale, a semi-hard cheese sprinkled with mustard seeds throughout.
Her cheese list is extensive featuring over 60 different cheeses (depending on their availability) as well as charcuterie and wine options to boot.
This small shop is packed with flavor, culture and is almost a door to the outside world in the tiny town of Winter Haven. A must stop if you are close, and a fun side note for cheese people who didn’t expect that a facet like this could be added to their Legoland trip. Leave the kids sleeping in the car and pop in for a quick bite and treat on the way home.
You can find the the Winter Haven Cheese Room at:
254 W. Central Ave., Suite B
Winter Haven, Florida 33880.
(863) 299-7000