I would like to take back any negative statements I may have made in the past regarding the Rainbow Grocery's cheese department. It's a very good cheese department, with many cheeses I've only seen at Artisan, like mimolette and Sally Jackson aged sheep's milk, wrapped in chestnut leaves. On Saturday night there was a very friendly staff person behind the counter, ready to answer any questions. And he gave us free samples of marcona almonds, very tasty. I think my real problem with the Rainbow is not its cheese department but its status as a vegetarian collective and how in other places there would be an alternative to Whole Foods where you could buy bacon and lamb shanks or even a can of tuna for god's sake, but here in San Francisco there is no such place. Portland, Madison, they all have Rainbow-esque stores with MEAT. So it's not the cheese department per se, but shopping while surrounded by people who don't even eat cheese, let alone bacon. I always feel like a majority of Rainbow shoppers don't even particularly like food.