Artisanal sandwich shop shutters after ruthless mocking of its insanely expensive grilled cheese

The owner of an artisanal Bay Area sandwich shop said she has been forced to close her doors after critics ruthlessly mocked the insane cost of her sandwiches — including $22 for a grilled cheese.

Kendra Kolling, the owner of bougie cafe The Farmer’s Wife, has officially closed both her brick-and-mortar locations.

She previously had one at nature-lover’s spot Point Reyes, north of San Francisco. And closed her other cafe at Sebastopol’s popular The Barlow Market late last year, SFGate reported.

Kolling said she made the decision to shut up shop due to the cooling economy and a viral Reddit thread where thousands mocked her costly sandwiches.

The post led to people review bomb her place, bringing down her ratings on Yelp and Google.

“They were calling me the most vile things, that it was beyond sandwiches,” Kolling told the outlet of the thread that went viral in early 2025. “It was so hurtful and personal.”

“When everyone was feeling the economic pains, someone’s got to be the target,” she added. “Someone has to be the poster child for everything costing so much. “I didn’t make the money that I was used to making in the summertime, and it would have been a lot tougher.”

Kolling said her high prices were based on the cost of the high-caliber ingredients in her sandwiches “like house-made toasted fennel pork sausage, and hyper-local items like Point Reyes Farmstead’s Toma cheese and Wild West Ferments sauerkraut,” per the report.

While she admitted she could’ve cut down on portions or used less pricey ingredients to make it work, she explained, “that doesn’t get me out of bed in the morning.”

“My brand and my identity became brutally attacked, and it crushed my spirit,” Kolling said.

One of Kolling’s locaions was replaced by the Culture Shop Cafe, operated by Wild West Ferments owners Luke Regalbuto and Maggie Beth Levinger, the new owners have clearly learned the lesson of the previous cafe and offer sandwiches at a lower cost.

“Affordability and approachability are absolutely a big part of what we’re trying to do here,” Regalbuto told the outlet.

And their menu offers a notable drop in costs, with three of the four sandwiches running between $14 and $15 and the priciest item on the menu costing $22 for a roasted pork belly baguette with leek-thyme kraut.

Kolling said she may “entertain” reopening her business.

“But right now, I’m just kind of licking my wounds and getting my strength back.”

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