Hooray! Here’s another regional pimento cheese brand to try

Queen Charlotte’s Pimento Cheese Royale is developing a loyal customer base, and the growing business is likely to be in contention as the manufacturer of “The Coolest Thing Made in North Carolina.”

(Make your nomination online at coolestthingmadeinnc.com. The deadline to submit nominations is Aug. 19.) 

Queen Charlotte’s Pimento Cheese Royale is a rather whimsical invention of John Morgan, known as an ants-in-your-pants art teacher at Prospect Elementary School in Monroe, N.C., who appeared as a contestant on the Jeopardy television game show in 2013.

As a second-place finisher, Morgan told host Alex Trebek that he had just won enough money to buy an industrial mixer to launch a pimento cheese making business in Charlotte, N.C.

 

Morgan told Beth Mack of CLTure magazine in Charlotte: “Every art student should have some sort of backup plan. Mine was to start a pimento cheese business.” 

He perfected his recipes while attending the College of Charleston (S.C.). Morgan launched Queen Charlotte’s Pimento Cheese Royale in 2014, with the help of his future wife, Myers McKenzie. The enterprise started small; they sold their cheese product at a public market in Charlotte on weekends.

 

Within a year, the business had gained so many customers, the couple decided to go all-in and make pimento cheese as a full-time endeavor. Morgan resigned his teaching position. 

Mack reported: “As a true Southerner, Morgan uses Duke’s mayonnaise (created by Eugenia Duke of Greenville, S.C.) as part of the base.” 

To round it out, he adds cream cheese and spices as well as North Carolina products – Texas Pete Hot Sauce made in Winston-Salem and jalapeños from Mt. Olive Pickle Company, based in Mount Olive. 

“Next up was the arduous task of grating the three different types of cheese (orange cheddar, white cheddar and pepper jack). All the cheese arrives in five-pound blocks, so Morgan gets his morning workout in by pushing block after block through a revolving grater attachment on the mixer,” Mack said.

 

“After this process is complete, the cheeses are mixed together (by hand, of course) and then scooped into the mixer with the base and pimentos in order to form the final product. After cooling the pimento cheese, it is scooped into containers and adorned with the label.” 

Morgan designed the label for the container. It’s dominated by an image of Queen Sophia Charlotte herself. She was the wife of King George III, ruler of the British Empire from 1760 to 1820.

 

Her Highness is shown holding a cracker with cheese spread on top. Morgan’s label also includes images of Charlotte’s professional sports teams – the Hornets and the Panthers – as well as the city’s skyline.

Sunny Hubler, editor of QC magazine in Charlotte, interviewed Morgan about the label design. He said: “I want Queen Charlotte to be as ubiquitous as a bottle of Heinz (ketchup). I want the Charlotte skyline and all of the Carolinian iconography of our label in refrigerators from Maine to Tijuana. It will be a complete pimento cheesification of the universe.” 

To expand one’s horizons, Morgan suggests putting pimento cheese “on sandwiches, grits, eggs, biscuits and macaroni and cheese.”

 

The company also offers a hotter version with a generous blast of jalapeños. Additionally, Morgan now offers a blue cheese as well as a bacon-flavored brand of cheese spreads. 

Queen Charlotte’s Pimento Cheese Royale was one of 68 North Carolina products nominated in 2021 for an online competition organized by the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce. The goal was to choose the “Coolest Thing Made in North Carolina.” 

A heavy-duty commercial truck won out. Morgan just shrugged his shoulders. 

“What a cheesy thing to say…it was cool just to be nominated,” Morgan said.

Just FYI: John Morgan is the guy who led the charge in Charlotte to bring the Hornets NBA  professional basketball team back to town. He's a proven winner.