Few small-business people in Calgary have the distinction of possessing a household name. But if you mention the name “Janice Beaton” to any Calgarian with even a passing interest in the local food scene, the inevitably reply is “Oh, you mean the cheese lady?”
As the owner of Janice Beaton Fine Cheese, Janice is certainly Calgary’s most famous cheese seller, though “cheese lady” isn’t a title she would have imagined holding prior to opening her shop in 2000. One of the founding owners of the much beloved Café Beano, Janice was looking for a new project after selling that business when a friend suggested she open a cheese shop. Having grown up on an East Coast farm that produced some cheese and having travelled extensively though Europe, Janice probably knew more about specialty cheese than most Calgarians, but it wasn’t her area of expertise.
“I was lamenting to a friend that there was no real cheese shop here in Calgary. Not a proper European-style, cut-to-order shop, at least,” Janice says. “My friend said ‘You know, Janice, you should open one. If anyone can do it, it’s you.’ I walked down the street to 17th and Eighth where the first location was and looked in the window and could just envision the shop. And that’s when I knew I would do it. And up until that moment I had no intention of opening a cheese shop.”
