Hilmar Cheese Company Visitor Center — Attraction in California

The Hilmar Cheese Visitor Center is a fantastic pit stop, especially if your road trip takes you along the 99 towards San Francisco or Sacramento.

This probably isn’t always the case, but my navigation took me through some winding, occasionally bumpy back roads, it was a scenic journey that showcased several dairy and even a goat farm, setting the perfect rural tone for a cheese-centric destination.

Upon arrival, I was immediately charmed by the lovely waterfall at the site. Inside, the visitor center is well-appointed, featuring a welcoming cafe with both indoor and outdoor seating, a tempting gift shop, and a cheese counter. Here, you can sample your way through three different cheese samplers, and they also serve Peet's Coffee and Dreyer's Ice Cream.

For a deeper dive into their operations, an old movie provides a fascinating look at their cheese-making process, complemented by a small exhibit section upstairs. From the upstairs area, you can even catch a glimpse of the cheese packing process. My family easily spent over an hour here, eating lunch, wandering around and enjoying all the offerings.

The Hilmar Cheese Visitor Center also offers some sweet deals! During my visit, there was a buy-one-get-one-free kids' ice cream offer, and I received a free tub of squeaker cheese curd cheese just for signing up for their mailing list. This is truly a great place to stretch your legs and learn a bit about cheese production. Just a heads-up: be sure to note their shorter Saturday hours and that they are closed on Sundays when planning your visit. It's a highly recommended stop for cheese lovers and...

Here's my official report on yesterday's Field Trip to the Hilmar Cheese Company.

How fun... and STINKY!

The Hilmar Cheese Company has an immersive educational experience for school-aged children. While I imagine that it can be tailored to those younger than my Second Graders, I think that classes up to about Fifth Grade would enjoy this trip.

Our time spent there started off by watching an interactive video hosted by "Daisy The Cow" in front of a large display. It explained to us how the dairy process is sustainable and recyclable, all while showing us exactly how it was done.

After the video was over, we headed upstairs to a big observation room where the kids did a science experiment. They shook their own cream, sugar and vanilla in aluminum containers with ice to make fresh vanilla ice cream. Our Tour Guides taught us a cute song about sustainable dairy farming, then took us through the educational stations where we got to see it for ourselves.

If you would like to see it for yourself in under three minutes, please take a look at my reel for the day at...

My son went here for his field trip. It was a couple kindergarten classes. I was chaperone. The kids had tons of fun. There was alot of information given out that I didnt even know about cows, milk and cheese. That was awesome. BUUUTT, It was sooooooo hot upstairs! Omg... very warm. They shud try and do something about that. Also, they had us going up and down and up and down the stairs. I feel like it shud be better organized. The flow of the presentation and tour should flow better. I also think that more should be offered for the kids. They get to make ice cream which is cool, BUT that's thee only cool thing there was. Other than that they stayed in a confined place and put on a costume once. But that was it. Side note, the cheese they gave us to taste was BOMB BOMB BOMB!!!!!!! lol

I have eaten there in the past at the small restaurant down stairs and it was sooooooo fresh...