Jeremy Wayne’s Best Business Choices — Dobbs & Bishop Fine Cheese, Scarsdale 

Cheese please, Louise! Or, cheese please, Ruth and Kevin, might be more appropriate, in the case of husband and wife Kevin McNeill and Ruth Walter, owners of Dobbs & Bishop Fine Cheese.  After 15 years serving cheese lovers in Bronxville, the pair have recently opened a second shop in Scarsdale.  

With no particular background in cheese, Walter said, opening the Bronxville shop back in 2009 was more of a pragmatic decision than fulfilling any kind of lifelong passion. Following the Great Recession in 2008-09, there were empty stores in Bronxville for the first time.  

“Kevin – the salesperson in this – looked around, did a lot of market research to see what was missing, and we realized that the closest really good cheese shop was in Darien,” she added. 

Indeed, there had been a quality cheese shop in Bronxville years before, so together they made the decision to “bring that back.” They learned on the job, with Walter studying cheese in New York City and the couple traveling to Vermont, California and France while visiting fairs and trade shows all over. 

The bright new shop, on the site of a former clothing store on Scarsdale’s Spencer Place, boasts a larger display than the Bronxville store, along with shelves of artisanal goodies to browse. The cheese menu, neatly displayed on a blackboard, runs to more than 80 cheeses, although not all are necessarily available at one time. They run the gamut of cow’s, sheep’s and goat’s milk cheeses, with other headings including “buffalo,” “stinky” and “bleu” and some inevitable crossover among the sections. Countries of origin include France, Italy and the United States (of course) as well as Great Britain, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands. 

Bread and pastries are supplied by Baltahzar and arrive fresh daily. Charcuterie comes from the Larchmont Charcuterie with more cured meats, sliced in the shop, from the highly regarded La Quercia in Iowa. 

It doesn’t stop at cheese, bread and meats either. The shops sell kitchen linens by Emily Grossman, who started her handwoven textiles business, the Yonkers-based Warp and Beam, during Covid; and handmade gifts by Zibu in Irvington. You’ll find all manner of household wares and locally made greetings cards, along with honeys, chutneys, oils and vinegars, handmade chocolates and a host of other upscale, mostly local comestibles. Walter and McNeill support local businesses where they can – “small-batch,” “local” and “artisanal” are key words – although sometimes limited production from smaller producers forces them to look further afield to maintain consistency. (Walter mentions a goat-cheese maker whom she admires but who can’t meet her supply requirements.)  

The couple hire young people, who tend to have more flexibility – and while cheese is not especially seasonal, the shops tend to be quieter over the summer, with customers on vacation, which is when the pair train staff for a fall start, leading up to the end of year holidays “when things are crazy.” Staffers are invested and loyal, Walter said, and can rise through the ranks to manager level. 

The No. 1 bestseller? That’s the triple-cream Délice de Bourgogne, a French cow’s milk cheese from the Burgundy region of France. Its high-fat content results from the extra cream added during the cheese-making process. Another popular cheese is Irish Cheddar. Walter’s own current favorite is La Tur, a tangy, sophisticated cow’s, goat’s and sheep’s milk blend, from Piedmont in Italy. 

Her children have taken to the business, too, becoming knowledgeable and enthusiastic and serving in the shop. A Yelp reviewer asked how anybody could take the shop seriously “when there’s a 14 year old behind the counter.” Walter’s reply: “That’s my son and he’s actually a really good cheesemonger.”