San Francisco’s 24th Street Cheese Company is closing

The 74-year-old owner Charles Kung said he’s ready to retire. “I’m tired of it,”  Kung told SFGATE. “I’ve been doing this for 36 years. The other thing is that it has been very difficult to find the help in the past few years. It’s getting worse. It’s not even worth it to continue.” He said he is hoping to sell the business and is talking to a potential buyer, but he said the negotiations aren’t finalized. “We’re negotiating on how much they want to pay on the business and how much rent they want to pay,” he said. The 24th Street Cheese Company in Noe Valley. Many of the big wheels of cheese were already sold to Rainbow Grocery, but Kung said there is still plenty of food left, including all the gourmet items, from Italian cookies to Spanish olives to French wines. Kung got into the cheese business when his mother bought the building 41 years ago.  Top Picks In Shopping “It was a cheese shop when my mother bought it, but the woman who ran it was sick, so I took over,” he said. “It was an accident.” A Facebook post announced the closure and many mourned the loss to the community. “So sad to hear this my dinner parties will miss your suggestions,” one person wrote. Kung didn’t give an exact date for when the story will officially close. Current store hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays. The shop is closed Monday and Tuesday.