Bucktown/WP Needs a Butcher

Having made the jump across the Kennedy from Lincoln Park this past Spring, I can say that there's two things that I miss the most. The first is the lake breezes, and nothing can be done about that. The second, however, is the convenience of having easy access to a premium butcher. In LP, I had Gepperth's, and Paulina Market was a convenient Brown Line ride a few stops north. Additionally, there was always Whole Foods in a pinch.

Given the neighborhood demographics, it's shocking to me that Bucktown/WP still does not have a great butcher shop.

Well if you look at the bus shelter at Webster/Damen, apparently Loyola prepared some guy to open a butcher shop in Bucktown. Wonder where it is???

What are you looking for in particular? Prime steaks, sausage or just general meat stuff?

Jamie

You could consider August, on Division at Greenview. The staff is immeasurably friendly and helpful, even though the shop itself is a little small. Their seafood, though, looks impeccable and I've had good success with items from their meat case, too. Their selection can be hit or miss, depending on what looks good and what they can get a good deal on, so I'd suggest calling ahead if you wanted something specific.

August Grocery
1500 W. Division
773.252.9560

leek wrote:Well if you look at the bus shelter at Webster/Damen, apparently Loyola prepared some guy to open a butcher shop in Bucktown. Wonder where it is???

What do you mean by "Loyola prepared some guy to open a butcher shop?"

RAB wrote:

leek wrote:Well if you look at the bus shelter at Webster/Damen, apparently Loyola prepared some guy to open a butcher shop in Bucktown. Wonder where it is???

What do you mean by "Loyola prepared some guy to open a butcher shop?"

That's what the advert says (it's for Loyola, not for butchers). You know, go to Loyola, achieve your dream

The new butcher shop is on Oakley just north of Milwaukee, and I think it's going to open in the next few weeks.

sasha wrote:The new butcher shop is on Oakley just north of Milwaukee, and I think it's going to open in the next few weeks.

Anyone been yet? http://www.sterlinggoss.com/

It would be great to have a good butcher shop closer than Paulina and Gepperth's.

Ronna

I went a month or so ago. The selection was what you find at your standard grocery butcher. USDA Choice meat, wet aged. They had a lot of pre-marinated meats and Bell and Evan's whole chickens, which was the highlight for me. I bought a hanger steak, which was less than fresh but tasted fine.

In my opinion it doesn't compare to places like Paulina or even Whole Foods. I'd be interested to hear what other people think.

Wow, that's really too bad. Thanks for the report, though.

I'm dreaming of a neighborhood butcher shop with a variety of local, free range, organic, pasture-raised, etc. products. Somewhere that the butcher knows the farmers. Of course, with some great house made charcuterie. (yes, I'm still longing for the Fatted Calf)

I think Paulina and Gepperth's are pretty great. But, there focus isn't on local, delivered fresh from the farm products. And, while the farmer's markets can be wonderful, it'd be nice to have selection of fresh, not frozen, meat.

Ronna

hmmm ... I'll have to check this place out after work today.

REB wrote:I'm dreaming of a neighborhood butcher shop with a variety of local, free range, organic, pasture-raised, etc. products. Somewhere that the butcher knows the farmers.

Agreed! I still long for my old butcher in Charlottesville. All local and grass-fed, mostly organic. Heritage breed hogs, grass-fed beef, fresh local lamb, real pastured chickens and turkeys, fresh duck. Not to mention, they share a building with my favorite bakery, a cheese and chacuterie shop and a wholesale/retail fishmonger who on any given day might only have 5-6 kinds of fish, since that's all that was good enough to buy and put out in the case.

Needless to say, a good portion of my paycheck went in to this building...

-Dan

dansch wrote:

REB wrote:I'm dreaming of a neighborhood butcher shop with a variety of local, free range, organic, pasture-raised, etc. products. Somewhere that the butcher knows the farmers.

Agreed! I still long for my old butcher in Charlottesville. All local and grass-fed, mostly organic. Heritage breed hogs, grass-fed beef, fresh local lamb, real pastured chickens and turkeys, fresh duck. Not to mention, they share a building with my favorite bakery, a cheese and chacuterie shop and a wholesale/retail fishmonger who on any given day might only have 5-6 kinds of fish, since that's all that was good enough to buy and put out in the case.

Needless to say, a good portion of my paycheck went in to this building...

-Dan

This is SO what I long for here. Each time I travel to another city, I find some type of central market, open at least 5 if not 7 days a week, with artisinal products, local products, etc. From Montreal's Italian market to Philadephia's Reading Terminal Market,

I WANT ONE!

dansch wrote:

REB wrote:I'm dreaming of a neighborhood butcher shop with a variety of local, free range, organic, pasture-raised, etc. products. Somewhere that the butcher knows the farmers.

Agreed! I still long for my old butcher in Charlottesville. All local and grass-fed, mostly organic. Heritage breed hogs, grass-fed beef, fresh local lamb, real pastured chickens and turkeys, fresh duck. Not to mention, they share a building with my favorite bakery, a cheese and chacuterie shop and a wholesale/retail fishmonger who on any given day might only have 5-6 kinds of fish, since that's all that was good enough to buy and put out in the case.

Needless to say, a good portion of my paycheck went in to this building...

-Dan

I'm just wondering if you have any idea what sort of transport issues would come up. Not like "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA?" but merely, do you have an idea?? Because I don't.

I'd think that in Charlottesville, with its rolling hills that aren't as amenable to staple grains, its gentlemen's farms, and a more recent transition to thoroughly commodified agriculture, there's livestock being raised in the immediate area. Here, I think you'd have to set up your own supply chain to get this stuff, and the economies of scale would be against you.

Or am I just unaware of how much of the infrastructure is already in place? I'm assuming that restaurants that use specialty meats generally have it shipped post-butchery, and that there is relatively little "whole meat" for lack of a better term coming into town.

15 years ago, I can remember once seeing goat carcasses carried into a little butcher shop on Taylor St. two doors down from Mario's Italian Ice (hmm, that'd be an interesting mash-in).

ryanwc wrote:I'm just wondering if you have any idea what sort of transport issues would come up. Not like "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA?" but merely, do you have an idea?? Because I don't.

I'd think that in Charlottesville, with its rolling hills that aren't as amenable to staple grains, its gentlemen's farms, and a more recent transition to thoroughly commodified agriculture, there's livestock being raised in the immediate area. Here, I think you'd have to set up your own supply chain to get this stuff, and the economies of scale would be against you.

Or am I just unaware of how much of the infrastructure is already in place? I'm assuming that restaurants that use specialty meats generally have it shipped post-butchery, and that there is relatively little "whole meat" for lack of a better term coming into town.

15 years ago, I can remember once seeing goat carcasses carried into a little butcher shop on Taylor St. two doors down from Mario's Italian Ice (hmm, that'd be an interesting mash-in).

You bring up some good points, but I think most of the infrastructure issues could easily be overcome. Especially with the movement towards more nose-to-tail cooking, I'd bet that a number of local restaurants (Mado, Blackbird, Vie, etc.) are bringing in whole animals and butchering on-site or at least are working with small farms and specialty processing houses to get exactly what they want.

As far as the availability of quality livestock in the area, it's definitely out there, you just have to find it. As more demand crops up, I'm sure the existing sustainable farmers would be happy to ramp up supply. If there was a butcher opening up that was focusing on sustainable, local meat, I'm sure they could find good sources within a reasonable radius.

There's even an online resource, Local Harvest which makes it easy to search for local farms and CSAs that do different kinds of meats and vegetables.

I recently got a half a hog from Willow Creek Farm which pasture-raises Berkshire hogs near Madison. Since I was planning on going up, I asked a few folks (other LTH'rs - including REB upthread) if they wanted any pork and ended up driving back from Madison with ~350lbs of pork in my trunk. That's some demand without even trying. If Charlottesville, a town of ~45,000 residents can support a butcher like this, Chicago with its 9,500,000* should be able to.

The couple that runs the farm, Tony and Sue, indicated that they're looking at building an on-site processing facility (currently they use a small local processor) and would like to break in to the Chicago market (they asked me about the Green City Market and my opinions of it). I'm sure that folks like this would love to be supplying local butchers with fresh carcasses.

-Dan

* Ok, that's the whole metro area... but still - you get my point.

jonsarkpk wrote:I went a month or so ago. The selection was what you find at your standard grocery butcher. USDA Choice meat, wet aged. They had a lot of pre-marinated meats and Bell and Evan's whole chickens, which was the highlight for me. I bought a hanger steak, which was less than fresh but tasted fine.

In my opinion it doesn't compare to places like Paulina or even Whole Foods. I'd be interested to hear what other people think.

Remembering this post, I shot by Sterling Goss on Sunday, looking for bone-in chicken breasts, figuring a "butcher shop" should be able to provide. What I found out is that this place is more like a deli with Boar's Head meats. They do have some grass fed beef and some marinated meats, whole chickens, and sausage but nothing stood out. The one thing I was surprised with is that they hung a sign that says, "Butcher always on duty" or something like that. I see that they have whole chickens and ask if they have bone-in breasts (I don't see them but it's something any butcher should be able serve up from the whole bird). The answer was "no, we're supposed to get some in tomorrow." I mentioned that I thought that seeing the whole birds, maybe they would break some down for me and the response was, "we just order them and we're out." Fair enough.

I then shot over to August and asked about bone-in chicken breasts, and their reply was sure, how many do you need? I didn't see them so I asked if they have them somewhere and he said that they break down all chicken pieces fresh from whole chickens. I thanked him and then noticed the Berkshire pork and ordered up four chops instead.

I won't be back to this "butcher shop" any time soon. The Loyola connection makes some sense as it seems to be a MBA business plan project rather than a butcher that knows the product. Too bad.

Sterling Goss
1845 N. Oakley
Chicago IL 60622
773-342-7100

August
1500 W Division St
Chicago, IL 60642
773-252-9560

dansch wrote:You bring up some good points, but I think most of the infrastructure issues could easily be overcome. Especially with the movement towards more nose-to-tail cooking, I'd bet that a number of local restaurants (Mado, Blackbird, Vie, etc.) are bringing in whole animals and butchering on-site or at least are working with small farms and specialty processing houses to get exactly what they want.

As far as the availability of quality livestock in the area, it's definitely out there, you just have to find it. As more demand crops up, I'm sure the existing sustainable farmers would be happy to ramp up supply. If there was a butcher opening up that was focusing on sustainable, local meat, I'm sure they could find good sources within a reasonable radius.

There's even an online resource, Local Harvest which makes it easy to search for local farms and CSAs that do different kinds of meats and vegetables.

I recently got a half a hog from Willow Creek Farm which pasture-raises Berkshire hogs near Madison. Since I was planning on going up, I asked a few folks (other LTH'rs - including REB upthread) if they wanted any pork and ended up driving back from Madison with ~350lbs of pork in my trunk. That's some demand without even trying. If Charlottesville, a town of ~45,000 residents can support a butcher like this, Chicago with its 9,500,000* should be able to.

The couple that runs the farm, Tony and Sue, indicated that they're looking at building an on-site processing facility (currently they use a small local processor) and would like to break in to the Chicago market (they asked me about the Green City Market and my opinions of it). I'm sure that folks like this would love to be supplying local butchers with fresh carcasses.

-Dan

* Ok, that's the whole metro area... but still - you get my point.

THis wasn't the point of the original thread, but when I think of the Montreal, Vancouver or San Francisco food markets and compare them to ANYTHING we have in Chicago, it just boggles the mind. Why we can't have a daily food market with QUALITY foodstuffs like other cities is beyond me. I'd say we have MORE of the necessary infrastructure to make this happen. What it takes is some vision and, of course, someone with pull to make it happen. Maybe Rick Bayless? Something like this on Goose Island would be absolutely perfect.

-Jay

ryanwc wrote:15 years ago, I can remember once seeing goat carcasses carried into a little butcher shop on Taylor St. two doors down from Mario's Italian Ice (hmm, that'd be an interesting mash-in).

It still happens.

jonsarkpk wrote:In my opinion it doesn't compare to places like Paulina or even Whole Foods. I'd be interested to hear what other people think.

I agree that the selection doesn't compare to Paulina or Whole Foods - but I really like having sterling goss in walking distance of my house, and I go by once a week or so to pick up some meat.

I definitely wouldn't call sterling goss a full service butcher shop, but they have good meat. The selection when I stop in is usually 3 or 4 types of fresh sausage, strip steak, skirt steak, hangar steak, ground beef, a few pork cuts (tenderloin, chops, and ribs are typical), along with whole and parted chicken. They'll also have skewers, 2 or 3 marinaded things and then a few random things like arm of lamb. They have some basics as well - garlic, buns, mustards, etc. along with Royal Oak Chef Select briquettes. I haven't tried the deli at all, but they have a decent selection of sandwiches. I actually haven't tried the chicken there either - I usually go to Ciales for that.

I wouldn't call it a destination butcher, but it is a good place and I'm happy they're nearby. Definitely worth checking out if you're in the area.

jblth wrote:

ryanwc wrote:15 years ago, I can remember once seeing goat carcasses carried into a little butcher shop on Taylor St. two doors down from Mario's Italian Ice (hmm, that'd be an interesting mash-in).

It still happens.

Awhile back I saw goat carcasses being carried into Sahar II on Kedzie. I was just going there to get some spices and bread, but I ended up going home with a goat too - just couldn't resist. My wife was kinda surprised when I got back.

Ta-da!

-Dan