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managing construction, and Drobot was making real estate deals when the two got to know each other. By the time the development project was done, Graham had fallen in love with the community and moved his family to Bandon, and Drobot was ready to move onto other ventures. Graham began campaigning to persuade Drobot that his next venture should be a new cheese factory – an artisan cheddar creamery – for Bandon. "He's pretty persistent. He kind of wore me down," Drobot said. "The cheese factory had worked before. There was no reason it couldn't work again." Drobot started thinking about how a cheese plant could be successful in Bandon in the 21st century. The town's location on the Oregon coast was still a tourist draw, but that business was seasonal. "A lot of restaurants here just shut their doors for January and February," he said. On the other hand, if tourists came to visit the cheese plant before, they'd probably do that again, especially if the facility could offer more than just a chance to watch cheesemakers at the vat. "The old factory had no place to eat, no place to sit," Drobot said. "We wanted to create an environment where people could hang out." To stay in business year-round, the creamery couldn't rely on selling cheese just to tourists and local residents – but e-commerce could play a part, and wholesale distribution would be essential, he thought. A shop attached to the creamery could offer local Oregon wines and craft beers as well as cheese. But even more essentially, the new factory would have to make cheese that was good enough, special enough, to persuade consumers that it was worth a premium price. "You're not going to make a billion dollars making cheese," Drobot said. "It's a more expensive product. Consumers know that, and they're willing to pay more for it. We would never have survived selling commodity cheese. That was very important." Graham and Drobot were going to need an expert cheesemaker. Fortunately, Graham had a friend who knew just where to find one. Joe Sinko took a personal interest in the fate of cheesemaking in Bandon. He'd run the Bandon Cheese plant before Tillamook bought it. Since then, he'd retired from cheesemaking and was working with Craft3, a nonprofit organization that provides alternative financing in the Pacific Northwest. His son, Brad Sinko, though, still happened to be a cheesemaker. In fact, he was the first head cheesemaker for Beecher's Handmade Cheese, just up the coast in Seattle. And he was ready to come home to Bandon – he just needed a job to come home to. With those pieces starting to come together, Drobot started drawing up a business plan and talking to potential funding sources to build a $2 million creamery on land that was still owned by Tillamook. The city negotiated the purchase of the land and offered a ground lease on the property at a very favorable rate. More public funding paid for a paved parking lot and a public restroom facility to accommodate visitors. The demonstration of community support for the project helped persuade Craft3 to provide a loan that bankers wouldn't offer for an 8,000 square-foot Face Rock Creamery that included a viewing gallery, retail shop and small restaurant that would be a tourist- stop development project to help rejuvenate downtown Bandon. With funding in hand, Graham managed the construction, completing it on budget and ahead of schedule. "This is a 14- month project, and we completed it in six months and 15 days," he told the crowd gathered at the grand opening ceremony and ribbon-cutting organized by the Bandon Chamber of Commerce. More than 400 people were there at the ribbon-cutting and about 1,000 people visited the creamery over the course of the day to sample and to buy squeaky curds, Face Rock Monterey Jack, 3- Pepper Cheddar, Vampire Slayer and Grand Opening Cheddar, Strong reported in the newspaper. "This is something that we have all been waiting for since Tillamook purchased, closed down and then tore down our cheese factory, which was the number-one tourist attraction to the community," Bandon Mayor Mary Schamehorn said at the ceremony, according to Strong's account in December 20, 2012 issue of the Western World. It probably never occurred to most of those guests that the shop was offering them Vampire Slayer and Grand Opening Cheddar that was older than the creamery in which they were standing. But while the creamery was being built, Brad Sinko hadn't been just The Cheese Guide 7 Face Rock Creamery Face Rock Creamery

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