Cheese lovers, meet Large Marge. She’s a modified Piaggio Ape (a converted Vespa scooter) with a fridge, shelves and lots of cheese. And soon you’ll see her at various pop-ups along the peninsula.

Large Marge – a name borrowed from the movie “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” – is the brainchild of Georgette Nelson, a Redwood City-based cheese buyer who runs the full-time tourism company Kitchen Table Travel. Georgette hopes to make Large Marge the cheese equivalent of the ubiquitous ice cream truck and to introduce the peninsula to local, historic and unusual cheeses through catering and pop-ups. Large Marge will offer blocks of cheese like those found at retail, as well as pre-made charcuterie boards and sandwiches.

“I love how cheese tells a story,” Georgette said. “It tells a story about who made it, where it came from, the type of milk, the landscape, everything.”

Large Marge is the newest member of Kitchen Table Travel, which Georgette and her sister-in-law Cat Nelson founded in 2020 to organize small-group culinary and real estate trips to Italy. Georgette attended culinary school and cooked on the Google campus before landing her current job working with cheese importers to source cheese for restaurants and hotels. She sees the cheese truck as the culmination of her experience in the hospitality industry, her work as a cheese buyer, and the global cheese knowledge she gained through her tourism business.

“Cheese is fun,” she said. “Cheese is science. You just take a little thing, like a bacteria in the air, and add it, or there’s a mistake, and somehow you end up with something completely different.”

The idea for “Large Marge” came about after Georgette and Cat returned from a trip to Sicily with Kitchen Table Travel.

“In Italy (Piaggio Apes) are everywhere, but in Sicily they are mainly used to sell fruit, vegetables and cheese,” Georgette said. “In the morning a guy comes along with (a Piaggio Ape) and shouts ‘Pomodoro!’ and then all the old ladies come down and buy their fruit and vegetables.”

Determined to bring the concept to the peninsula, she ordered a custom Piaggio Ape in November, and Large Marge arrived in February. Over the next few months, Georgette worked to get the Vespa a license plate and health permits, and arranged custom details with the Kitchen Table Travel logo on the doors.

“(I had the doors) painted at SS Customs in Redwood City … and all the cool young guys there thought Marge was the coolest truck ever, so they invited me to their Tesla Cybertruck show to raise money for the LEMO Foundation (in Redwood City),” Georgette said. “It wasn’t as awesome as all the other Teslas there, but it stood out in its own way.”

It was at this car show that Georgette met the LEMO Foundation, which hosted its first pop-up in July. When the Vespa is not in use, it sits at the Foundation’s headquarters.

“The LEMO Foundation are my cheerleaders and supporters,” said Georgette. “This place is amazing. Everyone here is super nice and really helpful.”

Georgette said her ultimate goal is to “bring more good cheese to the community.”

“I want to make cheese more accessible to everyone and also make it more fun and less serious,” she said. “Remember how wine was so serious for a long time? Cheese is kind of serious too, and people love cheese so much that it should be more of a celebration.”

Large Marge’s second pop-up sale will be all about Italy and will take place on September 14th from 1pm to 4pm at the BottleShop in Redwood City. Expect blocks of cheese, crackers, jarred veggies, charcuterie, candy and cookies.

“Everything you would expect from a holiday in Italy,” said Georgette.

Georgette hopes to one day have a fleet of Piaggio Apes selling a variety of goods along the peninsula.

“I could even do a Marge with a bookmobile, I could do a Marge with coffee, I could do a Marge with ice cream,” she said. “I want a whole fleet of these just to bring joy to the peninsula because it’s so sweet.”

For those looking to expand their cheese tastes, Georgette recommends buying cheese at Sigona’s in Redwood City and Palo Alto, and Bianchini’s Market in San Carlos and Portola Valley. Local cheese brands she recommends include Laura Chenel, Cypress Grove, Valley Ford Cheese, Marin French, Stepladder Creamery and Central Coast Creamery. Laura Chenel and Cypress Grove “were the original goat cheese makers that started a whole movement for proper cheesemaking, humane treatment of animals and fair pay for workers,” Georgette says, and Marin French is “the oldest cheese maker in America still in operation. They were making cheese back during the Gold Rush and they sent it downriver to San Francisco because there was an egg shortage there, so they made cheese there.”

Kitchen Table Travel415-964-0361, Instagram: @kitchentabletravelco.

Find out about news from the food industry. Follow Peninsula Foodist on Instagram And Subscribe to the newsletter to get insights into the latest openings and closings, learn what the Foodist is passionate about in food, read exclusive interviews, and stay up to date on the trends affecting the local restaurant scene.