Murray's Cheese
Murray Greenberg spent the Spanish Civil War selling pickles and herring. The counter was his family's appetizing store on the Lower East Side. Andrew Silverstein worked that out of Greenberg's naturalization file, for the Forward, in 2021. It does not fit a man who was fighting in Spain. What is real here is the affinage, and Murray's still ages its own cheeses in the city.
Why go
Greenberg handed the shop to his clerk Louis Tudda in 1973. Tudda lost the lease in 1991. Robert Kaufelt bought it that year for $50,000. He brought in Steven Jenkins, Dean & DeLuca's cheesemonger, as a consultant. In 2004 Kaufelt moved it to 254 Bleecker Street. The new shop was ten times the size. He built the affinage caves there. Kroger owns it now. The name was on more than 750 counters in over thirty states when Silverstein counted in 2021.
Order this / avoid
- Order: Stockinghall, one of the cheeses the shop ages itself.
- Order: whatever the monger is cutting off the cave rack. Those cheeses took prizes at the 2026 American Cheese Society competition.
What locals & experts say
- Andrew Silverstein, in the Forward in April 2021, after the municipal archives and an interview with Greenberg's son:
As for all those Murray's Cheese 'Est. 1940' totes, there wasn't a Murray's Cheese until the 1960s.
1 - The New Yorker's 2004 profile of Kaufelt, quoted in that same piece: the shop is
The Village Landmark that helped put cheese on the map.
1
Verdict
should-visit — Buy at the counter and take the smallest piece of the most expensive thing on it. The shop runs classes in the city if you want the long version.