The Cheese Board was founded on November 6, 1967 by Elizabeth and Sahag Avedesian as a privately owned business. They opened up on Vine Street in the small shop where the Juice Bar (another collective) is now located. Beginning with just a few hundred dollars on cheese they grossed $95 on their first day of business.

From the beginning they wanted to run a business in a totally different manner from most other businesses. They wanted to treat the customers as they themselves would want to be treated. In order to help achieve this, they soon decided they needed a different work environment —one based on all workers having equal power and working for equal wages. Based on Sahag’s experience on an Israeli Kibbutz, they created The Cheese Board Collective. Elizabeth and Sahag, along with their employees, took a $.50/hr pay cut to finance buying the business.

Early on, bread was produced in small batches outside the store by various people. When faced with the problem with what to do with leftover cheese scraps, the cheese onion curry bread was developed and baked in a standard kitchen oven in the store. Since then the bread baking has grown until now it produces some of the major profits for the store.

The Cheese Board moved from its original location to Shattuck Avenue in 1975. The new space was larger but still quite constricted. In 1990 the fish market next door went out of business and the Cheese Board expanded to create the current store.

The Cheese Board began making pizza on Tuesdays for lunch in 1985. Gradually this expanded to Wednesday lunch and Friday evening. In 1986 the Cheese Board acquired the space vacated by Pig by the Tail Charcuterie, four doors south of the main Cheese Board. This space was used to create and sell pizza three week day lunches (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) and Friday Evening. On Saturdays this space was used as a bread outlet for the main Cheese Board. Some Collective members worked at both sites.

In 1990 six members of the Cheese Board Collective formed a committee to seek out new members to form another collective–The Cheese Board Pizza Collective–which would allow the pizza operation to run full time. With this small group and some help from Cheese Board members, Pizza opened on a semi-full time basis–three lunches and Friday evening. While the Cheese Board was being remodeled the Pizza shop served as a bread, cheese and pizza store for nearly two months. Pizza eventually brought in new members, expanded its hours and now is open six lunches and five evenings each week. The Cheese Board Pizza Collective is run as its own business, but Pizza and the Cheese Board are under the same financial umbrella and operate under the identical corporate by-laws.

The Cheese Board Collective is a business wholly owned by its members. For tax and liability purposes it has been incorporated, with each collective member an equal shareholder and member of the board of directors. Upon joining each member is given ten sharess worth $100/share. When a member leaves these shares are sold back to the corporation. All members are paid an equal hourly wage. Profits go to buy new equipment, raise wages, or are placed into our retirement fund. Moneys placed into this fund are distributed based on hours worked.