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Joe Matos Cheese Factory to Close After 45 Years in Santa Rosa

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Woman in pink flannel standing amid a herd of cows reaches out to pet one of them.
Sylvia Tucker feeds the cows at the Joe Matos Cheese Factory in West Santa Rosa on Jan. 29, 2025. Open since 1979 on Llano Road, the cheese factory and its popular sales stand are closing on Friday, Jan. 31. (Gabe Meline/KQED)

I can never forget first discovering the Joe Matos Cheese Factory, 20 years ago.

On my weekend rounds in west Santa Rosa, between visits to Imwalle Gardens, Willie Bird’s Deli and the Pasta King, I’d turn onto a long country road that eventually became gravel and mud. Past the chickens and cows, and inside a shack behind the farmhouse, was a tiny sales counter surrounded by a “Cash Only” sign, a decades-old calendar and an even older tape dispenser. A quiet Portuguese woman would appear from the back, offering a sample.

For sale was only one variety of cheese, called St. Jorge. But it was such incredible cheese, made from an old Portuguese family recipe, that it kept me coming back time and time again.

Shelves at the Joe Matos Cheese Factory in Santa Rosa hold the last wheels of St. Jorge cheese on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (Gabe Meline/KQED)

Now, the humble Joe Matos Cheese Factory is closing. After 45 years in business, its final day is Friday, Jan. 31. It marks the end for one of the region’s oldest handmade cheese producers, and a quintessential hidden gem on the region’s backroads, representing a different, more agricultural Sonoma County.

Sylvia Tucker runs the cheese farm. She knows the closure is hard for the many fans of St. Jorge cheese, which has been passed down through six generations.

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“We’ve been having so many wonderful people come out,” Tucker tells me on a recent morning. “They all understand. They’re just sad to see us go. I’m sad to see us go, but Dad’s the most important thing right now.”

The Joe Matos Cheese Factory in West Santa Rosa was founded in 1979 by Joe and Mary Matos, who brought along an old family recipe when they immigrated from the Azores in Portugal in the 1960s. (Gabe Meline/KQED)

“Dad” is Joe Matos, the factory’s namesake, who along with his wife Mary immigrated from the Portuguese island of St. Jorge, in the Azores, in the 1960s. The couple started the cheese factory in 1979; Joe tended the cows while Mary pressed the cheese with a large brick attached to a two-by-four. Now 84 and in ailing health, Joe Matos requires Tucker’s around-the-clock care — a primary reason for the factory’s closure.

Adding to the decision is an increase in workers’ compensation premiums — Tucker refers to a “bogus” claim, disputed for two years, that caused monthly rates to triple and the operation to be helmed solely by Tucker and her daughter, Heather. Other cost factors include the shuttering in December of a local fermentation plant that supplied leftover cabbage as feed for the Matos cows.

Tucker herself has been making St. Jorge cheese for 20 years — the same timespan that I’ve prized its complex flavors. Tangy, buttery and nutty, with hints of citrus, it pairs exceptionally well with fruit. I personally spent a year trying to find the best way to use it on homemade pizza, and landed on toppings of St. Jorge, pears, kale, and beets. Pure perfection.

In anticipation of the closure, local restaurants like Handline in Sebastopol and wineries like Kendall-Jackson and Castello di Amarosa have stocked up on the cheese, offered in ages of 3, 6, 9 or 16 months, Tucker says.

Joe Matos Cheese Factory’s St. Jorge cheese was offered in four different ages: 3, 6, 9 and 16 months. (Courtesy Joe Matos Cheese Factory)

During my visit, Kathy Tresch, a dairy farmer based in Two Rock, is among the many fans waiting in line at the sales shack to buy their last wheel or wedge. Tresch herself has bought cheese at Joe Matos for 40 years.

“It’s sad because this has always been my favorite cheese,” Tresch says, remarking on its hard-to-describe flavor. “It goes with anything. You can melt it, you can cook with it, you can have it with wine. You can have it with fruit and nuts and grapes, or even just plain. Any way you have it, it’s great.”

There’s also the experience of driving out to the farm, with its chickens, cows, dogs, cats and geese.

“I’ve had a lot of people tell us that coming here is like going back in time,” Tucker says, “because we still do everything just the way dad and his family did it back in the Azores in St. George.”

Sylvia Tucker represents the sixth generation of cheesemakers at the farmstead in West Santa Rosa. Her daughter, Heather, would be the seventh. (Gabe Meline/KQED)

Those old methods may be losing ground in Sonoma County. The Sebastopol cheese producer Bohemian Creamery closed in late 2024 after 14 years in operation. As far as agricultural interests go, Tucker says, “I don’t think we’ve seen the worst yet. I think I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better again.”

Indeed, Joe Matos’ closure comes during a precipitous time for local food production in Sonoma County. The century-old Manzana, the county’s last working apple processing plant, is slowly closing its historic facility in Graton. The 48-year-old La Tortilla Factory shut down its Santa Rosa plant last year. Amy’s Kitchen in Petaluma laid off over 300 workers in October. And Wildbrine, which supplied the Joe Matos Cheese factory with its leftover cabbage to use as feed, closed its Santa Rosa plant last month.

Even my own weekend rounds look different these days. A section of Imwalle Gardens’ farmland is now tract houses. Willie Bird’s Deli closed. The Pasta King still sells ravioli and lasagna on the honor system at the family kitchen on Stony Point Road, but Art Ibleto, the Pasta King himself, died in 2020, and his summertime Spaghetti Palace at the fairgrounds has been torn down.

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Meanwhile, Sonoma County still has plenty of farmers and small food producers. But as I drive back on the bumpy dirt road with my wedge of St. Jorge cheese one last time, I quietly say goodbye to one of its most special, and wonder: Do we have the will to keep supporting them?

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