Sept. 25, 2019

By Mick Garry, for SiouxFalls.Business

It’s certainly plausible that there are people out there who have never been to Dimock, aren’t really sure where Dimock is, but have no trouble identifying what the little southeastern South Dakota town is best known for: cheese.

Dimock Cheese, also known as Dimock Dairy, has been cranking out artisan cheese since 1931, steadily building on a line of local products that has a great history in addition to a great taste.

This summer, the company expanded its operations to include another building. With an estimated $1 million invested in the project, it includes new office headquarters, bigger packaging and labeling areas, a larger refrigeration room and, most compellingly, an expanded retail outlet where customers can sit, sample a local beer from the region and nibble on cheese and other appetizers.

“We keep all the South Dakota beers we can get, as well as Remedy (Brewing Co. of Sioux Falls) on tap,” said Paul Weidenbach, one of the co-owners.

“You can sit down and have a beer or a wine — we have regional wines, a lot of regional meats and seasonings, SDSU ice cream and kuchen from Scotland.”

Weidenbach kept listing all the South Dakota products available at the new location, then summarized:

“We sell a lot of things you just aren’t going to find other places — or you would have to look pretty hard for them,” he said.

“It’s not a specialty store exactly, or not necessarily an artisan store, but it’s not a convenience store, either. It’s just a place where we sell a lot of things you’d like to have.”

At last count, the business was selling 23 varieties of premium cheese and eight original cheese spreads with the name well-established as a popular choice at almost all the grocery stores in the region.

In Sioux Falls alone, it’s a lengthy list:

• All Hy-Vee stores
• Josiah’s Coffeehouse & Cafe
• Sunshine Foods
• Fogies Liquor
• 4 Seasons Pump & Pack
• Uncle Ed’s Specialty Meats
• Pomegranate Market
• The Co-op Natural Foods
• All Fareway stores
• The Meat Lodge
• Andy’s Affiliated Market

The cheeses also are used in restaurants such as Morrie’s Steakhouse, Ode to Food & Drinks, BB’s Pub N Grill, Myers’ Deli & More and Remedy Brewing Co. They’re served at Minnehaha Country Club and Sanford USD Medical Center.

It all comes out of Dimock, though, and that’s how the owners — who bought the business in 2015 from a group of local shareholders with assurances they’d keep the headquarters in the community — want to keep it.

Originally, it was a co-op of more than 30 dairy-farming families. When Weidenbach and his partners, Mike and Drew Muntefering and Denny Everson, began having conversations with shareholders about buying the business, a suitable selling price was obviously part of it, but at least as important was that the business continue to claim Dimock as home base with milk supplied from local farms.

“When we began thinking about changes, we wanted to keep a commitment to Dimock,” Weidenbach said. “We’re still in Dimock. It’s still Dimock Dairy. It was important to us to keep it here.”

The new facility is along Highway 37 and First Street in Dimock across from Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church.

Store hours are 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. weekdays and 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.

“It’s going very well,” Weidenbach said. “We’re very proud of the new building and how it turned out. We did some unique things that you really don’t see a lot of in the area. We’ve made it a place where you can pull off the road and relax for a little while. And stock up on cheese, of course.”