Cole Fortman
The Grilled Cheese Dude
When Cole Fortman was 18, he left Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, for Chicago to go to film school. After a year, he dropped out. He hated it. Looking back, Fortman knows he really didn’t have the passion for college, but he says he’d “been trained to think for my entire life up to that point.” Instead, he wanted to be an entrepreneur, starting in middle school, when he would sell sunglasses from his grandfather’s factory to his classmates, or in high school, when he sold peanut butter and chocolate treats. Fortman didn’t realize the grilled cheese he made could be called “gourmet.” It was just his routine recipe: sourdough bread; at least three cheeses (deli, if he has the budget for it, though Sargento’s works too); and, to top it off, seasonings like bacon or pulled pork. Becoming the Grilled Cheese Dude happened by accident. Initially, he was just posting pictures of his grilled cheese on social media, working with friends, trying to get the best grilled cheese “stretch” he could on camera. Soon he was being asked to make the sandwiches at parties, which gave him a new idea: The Grilled Cheese Tour, a 45-day bike from Arizona to Chicago, which boosted his social media profile. He has found a niche making his sandwiches on film shoots in Chicago and music festivals.
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The bike tour, he says, changed his life. “There was one point where I was going down the side of a mountain in Arizona and I was braking, going like 45 miles per hour, and I was just screaming at the top of my lungs. It was all beautiful.”
I was just screaming at the top of my lungs. It was all beautiful.