At Sanilac Creamery, Formerly Zingerman's, the Cheese Is Still the Easy Part
Next door to the Bakehouse on Plaza Drive, the operation once known as Zingerman's Creamery turns Michigan milk into some of the best fresh cheese and gelato in the state, now under its own name.
The Creamery shares the south-side Plaza Drive complex with Zingerman's Bakehouse. It has made cheese there since 2001, first as Zingerman's Creamery and, since fall 2025, as an independent business called Sanilac Creamery.1The Creamery's departure from the Zingerman's Community of Businesses and its new name, Sanilac Creamery, per the business's own site and Ann Arbor News reporting, published October 3, 2025. The rename reflects a change in ownership structure, not a change in what happens on Plaza Drive: same team, same recipes, same building. The parts of this piece describing production and products reflect current operations under the new name; references to the Zingerman's Community of Businesses describe the Creamery's history through fall 2025.
The Creamery is smaller than the Bakehouse. Where the Bakehouse fills a large production space and ships bread nationally, the Creamery operates on a more intimate scale. You walk into a retail area that's maybe a third the size of the Bakehouse's front room. A glass case holds wedges and rounds of cheese. A gelato freezer sits along the wall. Behind the counter, through a window, you can see the production room where the cheese gets made. The whole place smells like warm milk and cultures.
The Cheese
The Creamery's lineup splits into two categories: fresh cheeses that turn around fast and aged cheeses that take months. The fresh side is where most people start, and for good reason.
Cream cheese is one of the Creamery's core retail products. Current size, price, and availability should be confirmed through Sanilac Creamery's listings.
Fromage blanc is a fresh, spreadable French-style cheese. The Creamery's current product listing is the source for size, price, and uses.
Fresh mozzarella gets made by hand in small batches. You can watch the team stretch it if you time your visit right. It is a milky, soft cheese with the pull-apart quality that store-bought mozzarella cannot match. Current size and price should be confirmed through Sanilac Creamery's listings.
The aged lineup has included Manchester, a washed-rind cheese, and Detroit Street Brick Cheese, a semi-soft cheese designed for Detroit-style pizza. Check current listings for availability and tasting notes.
Prices across the cheese case range from about $7 to $20 depending on the type and size. Not cheap, but the quality is apparent from the first bite. These are cheeses made from Michigan milk in a room you can see from the counter. That transparency is not marketing. It's the actual production model.
The Gelato
The gelato is easy to overlook when you came in for cheese. Don't. The Creamery makes gelato in-house using the same Michigan dairy that goes into the cheese, and the difference between this and most commercial gelato is immediate. It's denser, creamier, and the flavors taste like the thing they claim to be.
Toasted Coconut has actual coconut flavor, not the sunscreen-adjacent version you get elsewhere. Chocolate Shovel is dark and intense without being bitter. Salted Caramel has turned up in the case and is worth getting when it's available. They rotate flavors, so what's in the case changes, but the base quality stays consistent.
A single scoop is about $5, a double around $7. In a city with Blank Slate Creamery doing excellent work downtown, the Creamery's gelato holds its own with a different approach. Where Blank Slate leans into creative flavors and a shop atmosphere, the Creamery's gelato feels like an extension of the dairy operation. Less playful, more fundamental. Both are good. They're solving different problems.
The Ecosystem
For more than two decades as Zingerman's Creamery, the operation supplied cheese to the Deli, the Roadhouse, and other Zingerman's businesses. When you order a grilled cheese at the Roadhouse or cream cheese on a bagel at the Deli, there's still a good chance it came from 3723 Plaza Drive. Now operating independently as Sanilac Creamery, the business continues to supply Zingerman's businesses as an outside vendor rather than a fellow member of the Community of Businesses.1The Creamery's departure from the Zingerman's Community of Businesses and its new name, Sanilac Creamery, per the business's own site and Ann Arbor News reporting, published October 3, 2025.
The Creamery also sells to restaurants outside the Zingerman's network. Its mozzarella and cream cheese appear on menus around Ann Arbor, usually without attribution. This is the same quiet supply-chain influence I described in the Bakehouse piece: a production operation on an industrial side street, feeding quality ingredients into a city's restaurant ecosystem.
Aubrey Thomason is credited as the founding cheesemaker, building the program from scratch. In the Community of Businesses it grew up in, built on deep craft knowledge, the Creamery was perhaps the purest expression of that idea, and the same standard carries into its life as an independent business. One product, made well, from local ingredients, by people who have devoted years to learning the science and feel of milk becoming cheese.
Plaza Drive, Again
Plaza Drive's retail counters are attached to production facilities rather than designed as destination storefronts. The Creamery's current site explains the retail selection and service details.
That lack of performance is the point. The Creamery doesn't need a charming storefront because the cheese does the talking. The fromage blanc on your morning toast, the mozzarella on your summer pizza, the gelato you eat standing in a parking lot on a Tuesday afternoon. None of it requires atmosphere. It just requires milk, cultures, time, and someone who knows what they're doing.
Sanilac Creamery, formerly Zingerman's Creamery, is at 3723 Plaza Dr, Ann Arbor. Open daily.