Best friends Jeanne Dunn and Jessica Feerick have successfully turned their love of cheese into edible artistic expression: their charcuterie board business Keeping Up With The Boards.
Brought to life during quarantine in 2020, Keeping Up With The Boards started as Dunn and Feerick’s creative outlet. “During quarantine, we started putting together the charcuterie boards ourselves,” Feerick started, “and we did it kind of virtually just as a fun thing because we couldn’t see each other. Then one of our friends mentioned that she knew somebody who wanted to buy one, and we were like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if we’re going to do that.’ Long story short, we wound up doing it.”
The Boards
Keeping Up With The Boards is a name that reflects the owners’ lives. Both Dunn and Feerick have full-time jobs, with charcuterie serving as a side project founded on their shared love of cheese.
“We were thinking one night just what we were going to call ourselves, and I think Jeanne came up with it at first. She was like, ‘What about Keeping Up With the Boards?’ just because we’re always doing something so how are we going to keep doing this? And I said, ‘Alright, that works,’ and it just kind of stuck,” Feerick explained.
They created Instagram and Facebook accounts for the business to help spread the word, garnering a few thousand followers total. Being best friends of 15 years alleviates the pressure that may come with this sort of traction, though. “It kind of made a life of its own, and we just kept going with it. We enjoy being creative like that. It’s very fulfilling.” Feerick continued, “It’s a little bit stressful, but between the both of us, we work very well together and we balance each other out. We don’t even have to say anything to each other, we know what needs to be done.”
Dunn and Feerick offer a variety of board options for any occasion. From desert boards to breakfast and brunch boards to the classic snacking charcuterie boards, there’s something for everyone. They additionally curate grazing tables for larger events. All of Staten Island as well as parts of Brooklyn, Long Island, and New Jersey are available for delivery.
Feerick concluded, “When we do any type of order and we get the feedback from all of our clients and they’re just so happy with everything, that is the best part. That’s all we want. We want everybody to be happy. It’s the satisfaction at the end and everybody being happy and enjoying it. That’s what it is.”
