Vaughan Cheese Counter & Bar — Restaurant in North Beach

Great little place a block from the water, next to the big Mexico restaurant.

Inside a nice selection of artisanal cheeses to buy and take with, buy and eat there or to pick and choose from for a customized cheese board (more on that in a bit).

A decent amount of indoor seating but you come down to North b beach for the outdoors… and they have plenty of outdoor seating. Take your choice- sit at tables out front on the gravel and cement patio and watch the world go by, or snug yourself away on the side at ground level or on a small deck/porch. Some seats have umbrellas for shade, most do not.

In addition to the cheese, there’s a variety of creative accompaniments from little plates/tapas to full on meals. Recommend trying the mixed pickled vegetables - the shop owner is a graduate of the CIA (food not spies) and pickles each veggie type separately to bring out their best flavors. The pickled eggs are the 💣.

And the wine … by the glass or the bottle, decent wines, some unusual, prices fairly reasonable for a restaurant. Also an innovative selection of craft cocktails, with or without alcohol.

Now about that cheese …. My recommendation if buying a cheese board is, if it’s more than 1 board per person (at $28-35 per board) is to just order 1/4 or 1/2 pounds of your choice of cheeses and the accompaniment’s you want. We ordered a 5 cheese sampler for 4 people to share(in addition to several small plates and sandwiches) and were astounded by the its bitsy servings. They were all approximately the size of one of the wedges from a Laughing Cow cheese spread wheel. Everyone got just a taste of each cheese for $35. IDK why I didn’t take a photo!

OTOH the cheeses were good, as much as I could tell from the it’s bitsy taste of each. Overall, 4 stars for quality or the food, misses 5 starts due to portion & price for...

We stopped by to eat before heading to the beach and just wished the experience was better, especially being a mom celebrating mother’s day. First, very nice staff and it was pretty and clean. The food was ok (got the philly cheese steak and cesar salad) which the sandwich was you would normally pictjre it was more of a sandwich. And the salad was literally 4-5 romaine lettuce leaves (not cut up or anything) and we had requested chicken and it was just a piece of chicken to the side. (Again not cut up, this is important for later) I will say the grilled cheese the kids had were delicious. However for the food for us adults, it took AN HOUR (i timed it with pics I took) Again. It was a sandwich and the salad wasn’t even prepared or present like a salad. More like ingredients. That was really frustrating, as the server did mention a couple times it would just be 5 more mins. And, of course, the moment we decided we’ll just go somewhere else, someone came out at that exact moment with our food and asked if we still wanted it.

I felt like the tables that just got cheese, bread and wine were attended a little faster so maybe that’s what they can provide a bit quicker, if you’re going...

I usually drop a star on the overall rating if the service was not that great... but... just gotta say that the food was worth "slightly less than observant" service. She was really sweet and nice, but more elusive. Other tables had multiple visits while i waited and a table of 2 that came in a while after i arrived; ordered, ate, paid and we're about to leave before me. The food however... oh, sweetness. Between the presentation, the texture and the flavors! I'm using the byte system for my teeth so it was a bit tender to eat, but so worth every bite! If i only ordered just bread and butter, it would have been enough to satisfy! Warm, crisp on the crust and soft inside... yum. The other table had a cheese adventure, so perhaps I'll try that another time! If you like cheese, I'd go for it, their comments as they were eating were just straight "Mmm"'s! With comments about the textures and the soft and creaminess of some. Visit...