Michael’s Grill & Salad Bar in Highland Park, Illinois, has been a local favorite since 1977, growing from an 800-square-foot hot dog stand to a 10,000-square-foot restaurant. It’s been a community gathering spot for generations of families, kids’ sports teams and neighbors who can’t get enough of the cheeseburgers, cheese fries and 60-ingredient salad bar, said current owner Ryan Gamperl.
“Everybody comes here for the cheese fries,” he added. “The richness and creaminess of the cheese sauce is a differentiating factor.”
Gamperl was purchasing the same melting cheese from the same supplier the previous owners had used for years. But one day last year, he was heating the cold pack product and noticed that it was burning, breaking up and becoming oily. “Unbeknown to us, the manufacturer had modified the recipe, and nine out of 10 orders were coming out ruined,” he said.
That “downward spiral” as he calls it, propelled Gamperl to nearby Kenosha, Wisconsin, to huddle with some of the top cheese experts in the U.S.
Into the cheese lab …
Kenosha’s Mars Cheese Castle is a landmark on the highway that goes from Illinois to Wisconsin—and a cheese-lover’s paradise. But along with a huge retail store and casual restaurant, the castle-like building also houses a lab to test products. “If you’re going to test cheese, what better place to go than here?” asked Gamperl. So he drove up to Mars with his cheese-melting pot by his side.
After testing several products, he found a cheese that melted well and had good flavor, but it was a bit sharper and more orange in color than the original. “It's a big thing for us to not rock the boat with menu staples,” said Gamperl. “When you're in business this long, the majority of people know what they want to eat before they walk in the door, and they want consistency.”
He tried seeing if his longtime supplier could work out a blend using the sharper cheese and mellowing the flavor and color, but they were dragging their feet. Through Mars, Gamperl had found a manufacturer that was willing to work with him on a recipe specific for melting. “They told me, "if you develop a recipe for melting cheese, we’ll produce and co-pack it for you,’” he said.
After many tweaks over several months that included adding more cheddar, trying different whey proteins and testing for creaminess, Michael’s own Premium Melting Cheese was born. “I worked out a recipe for a cold pack cheese that’s superior for how we use it than the product we had been buying for decades,” said Gamperl.
It was so important to get it right, as the melting cheese is used all over the Michael’s Grill menu; the cheeseburgers, cheese fries, baked potatoes, roast beef sandwiches, tater tots, mac and cheese and hot dogs all depended on it.
And on to distribution channels
Cheese problem solved, but now Gamperl had to purchase the product in very large quantities to get the price he wanted. Cheese was coming into Michael’s Grill by the pallet. Gamperl finally asked himself, “What am I going to do with all this cheese?”
Coincidentally, the president of Sysco North America lives nearby and had been coming to Michael’s since he was a kid. “We were meeting about a different issue, but I told him the story behind the cheese and gave him a taste,” said Gamperl. He had a lot of nostalgia for the restaurant and was impressed with the cheese, so he connected the restaurateur with the rep who runs Home Grown by Sysco in the Midwest. The program supports small businesses and local vendors that are introducing products to the market.
Ryan Gamperl with Michael's Premium Melting Cheese, packed in retail and foodservice sizes.
Sysco soon became a distribution partner, bringing the melting cheese to restaurants and retail stores in the area. “We got pulled into the market rather than me trying to push it into the market,” said Gamperl. He feels the brand has legs to go beyond Chicago’s North Shore suburbs—reaching into Arizona and Florida where Highland Park’s snowbirds relocate in the winter. “There’s a lot of nostalgia for Michael’s Grill by the generations that have grown up with the restaurant,” he said.
Gamperl is excited that the melting cheese he helped create is now available at golf course halfway houses, a bunch of restaurants and grocery store shelves. “But at the end of the day, if we can just serve our customers consistent, quality food on a daily basis, I’m most happy,” he said.