Inside an NYC cheese shop’s sharp twist on a holiday retail tradition

Holiday window displays are a New York City retail institution, with eye-catchingly elaborate scenes typically highlighting fashion, jewelry, or toys behind the glass. This year, a 60-year-old Greenwich Village specialty staple is turning the spotlight, instead, on cheese.

Passersby on New York City’s bustling Bleecker Street this holiday season have been treated to a cheesy cityscape in the window of Murray’s Cheese, a shop operating in the neighborhood since 1962. The handmade display, unveiled last month, depicts a miniature Murray’s flanked by strolling cartoonish cheese characters. The effort is part of Murray’s “Where there’s cheese, there’s cheer” campaign supporting the shop’s busiest season, as shoppers pick up wares for yuletide charcuterie spreads.

“This is a busy street; people walk fast,” Sheila Haile, head of marketing, brand, and creative for Murray’s Cheese, told Retail Brew, showing off the display. “[The window] stops people. And then they get that, like, ‘Oh, look at that,’ which is what we wanted. We wanted to just capture that little warmth of the holiday.”

The store features a wall-to-wall case filled with specialty cheeses—some wrapped in a spruce binding, covered in bourbon-soaked leaves, or rubbed in Sri Lankan curry powder—helmed by cheesemongers eager to give you recommendations or even a taste for yourself. With its holiday campaign, Murray’s is leaning into community (“We don’t sell cheese; we serve cheese,” Haile noted) and finding sharper ways to engage cheese lovers and novices alike.

Cheddar than ever: Murray’s Cheese, acquired by Kroger in 2017, operates more than 1,000 Kroger shop-in-shops, along with a Grand Central location and online store that ships nationally. But its holiday campaign comes to life at its Bleecker Street flagship, where it previously aged its in-demand, limited-release cheese in underground caves before it relocated its caves to Queens.

For this holiday season, “we thought about what we bring to the table as a brand, and how we build our community,” Haile said. “We wanted to make this experience as joyful as we could.”

The window has been in the works since last May, when one of Murray’s designers presented an idea for the following year’s holiday that Haile thought would translate well to a window display. From there, they worked with Theresa Rivera Design, an NYC-based production and design studio that’s worked with productions featuring Michelle Obama and Beyoncé.

The display, unveiled on November 18, features festive versions of cheese characters, which are custom illustrated in house and used across branding year round, rotating on the re-created corner of Bleecker and Cornelia Streets in front of a snowy, miniature Murray’s storefront. All of the display’s details—from the tiny ticket dispenser, baguettes, and boxes of sea salt crackers, to, of course, all the little cheeses—were made by hand, Haile said.

With this holiday campaign, which also includes OTT ads and social media content, the retailer wanted to “own the season,” invoking nostalgic ads like the annual Coca-Cola holiday commercials, she said.

“We want to be able to bring this back every year and have people go, ‘Oh, that’s that thing from Murray’s again.”

Bries the day: Its 12 Days of Murray’s Cheese Advent Calendar—which has sold out online, with limited stock left at the store—carries over the window design into the store. The festive cheese characters are also featured throughout the store, on apparel and surprise mini-prints of cheeses ice skating, clinking champagne glasses, or stacked like a Christmas tree.

It’s also selling, of course, a number of seasonal limited-release cheese drops, like a Vacherin Mont D’Or, a Swiss cheese that’s only made with cow’s milk from the fall and winter months. While these limited release cheeses aren’t quite as hyped as a sneaker drop, consumers look forward to them, Haile said.

For those not so well-versed in cheese, in-store cheesemongers offer recommendations for its holiday cheeses (like Stockinghall cheddar, which ranked fifth out of more than 5,000 cheeses at last month’s World Cheese Awards in Switzerland). These cheesemongers help emphasize the importance of community and making consumers feel comfortable.

And beyond cheese, Hale said the store has aimed to become a “bigger gifting source,” this year, with sweet treats like panettone and even gouda, brie, and salami tree ornaments. The goal, ultimately, has been to create “an interesting in-store experience” for shoppers.

“That’s what [consumers] want,” Haile said. “We’re listening to what people are looking for and what they’re looking for from a brand like us.”

Rind regards: And the holiday window has brought in more customers to experience it all, too. “Everybody’s happy,” Haile said.

“We didn’t set out to be Macy’s; we wanted to create something that would become part of our story for the next several years,” she said, adding, “We’re already starting to think about what we’re going to do next year.”