Bay Area’s best picnic spots: Marin French Cheese Co., Petaluma

If you’re driving out to some gorgeous spot on the coast, you could certainly stop at the Marin French Cheese Co. and pick up provisions — the company’s famous artisan cheeses, fresh sandwiches, wine —for a delicious picnic.

But here’s another idea: Make this Marin cheese company your destination. Set amid rolling hills on a 700-acre dairy farm in Hicks Valley, its cheese shop and expansive picnic grounds offer a vision of West Marin pastoral heaven.

The company’s iconic sign along the Point Reyes-Petaluma Road, west of Novato, invites passers-by to stop and stay a while. For locals, the cheese company, known simply as “The Cheese Factory,” has long been a destination for a day out. It’s especially popular with families looking for a pretty lunch spot where kids can run around.

The cheese shop is housed in a classic, farmhouse-style building. The surrounding property is home to cows, chickens, a pig farm and a vegetable garden. And the historic creamery behind the shop has produced award-winning Brie and Camembert-style cheeses since 1865, making it the oldest cheese company in the United States.

Using traditional French techniques, founder Jefferson Thompson created his classic Petite Breakfast cheese to feed San Francisco’s booming population of dockworkers following the Gold Rush. Since then, the company has expanded its repertoire to appeal to contemporary palates, creating Brie-style cheeses made with mustard seeds, jalapeños or imported French truffles.

West Marin’s terroir and climate – foggy mornings, cool ocean breezes and warm afternoons – help give those cheeses their signature flavors, and climate also makes this an especially pleasant picnic spot any time of year, but especially in the spring, summer and early autumn.