Beloved Sarasota Cheese Shop Closing Despite Efforts To Save It

SARASOTA, FL — A beloved downtown Sarasota cheese shop is closing for good despite efforts last year to save it.

Artisan Cheese Company, located at 550 Central Ave. in the Rosemary District, will start selling its equipment, including deli cases, sandwich prep fridges and grab-and-go fridges, meat slicers, ovens, and more on Monday, when it hosts an open house.

“I tried unsuccessfully to keep the doors open, but I have failed,” owner Louise Converse wrote in a social media post, adding, “The cheese industry is incredible. I wish I could have stuck it out. I love all of it. I have been so proud to be part of it. I have let you down. I am so sorry. I mean it.”

Converse wrote that she had new owners slated to take over the cheese shop, and she’s been working with them in recent months ahead of the planned transition.

“But sadly the space will end up going to a restaurant as the restaurant won the Landlord’s approval over the cheese shop, as is their prerogative, as I am in rent arrears,” she wrote.

She previously announced the shop’s closure in early May 2025, but after launching a GoFundMe following the announcement, Converse was able to raise more than $54,000 to stay open at that time.

Her current plans to close the shop have taken a toll on her as she starts “the painful process that is ahead,” she wrote. “I leave this with nothing. To say that my mental health has taken a hit is an understatement.”

Converse said she “got over leveraged with trying to keep the shop open through” the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sales were also down by 40 percent over the past year “and this summer has shown us a staggeringly lower [percentage] than that,” she wrote. “It’s impossible. I take the blame for not being able to do better.”

She also expressed her love for the cheese industry and her customers.

“I love our customers so very much. You are the best community anyone could ever ask for. Thank you,” Converse wrote. “You’re the reason why we have been here for 14.5 years. You’re truly the most lovely.”

She also encouraged people to support small local businesses, writing, “Please go and shop at your local shops, you have no idea what they are going through behind the shiny facade of social media.”

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