Customer Service A Priority At...

Butcher’s Best Market

Butcher’s Best Market, located just through the doors of the Newtown Deli & Catering at 79 South Main Street, is expanding to a 3,000-square-foot space “just up the street” from the current location, come late fall, said owner and butcher Steve Ford. Staying with the same service-oriented attitude and a “fresh and local” concept, Mr Ford will broaden his services to include local produce from Newtown and Sandy Hook, dairy products from Connecticut, and cheeses from around the state and New England.

At the new Butchers Best Country Market, commitment to customer service and quality will remain a top priority, Mr Ford said.

Since September 2009, customers of Butcher’s Best Market have been thrilled to experience Newtown’s one and only “hoof to sausage guy,” Mr Ford. The term “hoof to sausage” refers to a time when butchers received shipments of whole, fresh meat from small farmers located outside of the cities, and created their own cuts. In just a 300-square-foot space for the sale of fresh meats, poultry, game, and even some seafood, Mr Ford has provided a one-on-one experience for his clients. The shop took top ranking in voting for butcher shops in Connecticut, in Connecticut Magazine in 2011.

Until the move, customers can continue to peruse the 12-foot-long fresh meat case at 79 South Main Street for steaks, roasts, stewing meat, ribs, and other cuts of beef from certified, all-natural Angus beef cattle. All of the pork products come from hormone-free, antibiotic-free pigs purchased from Cabbage Hill Farm in Mount Kisco, N.Y., used for the store-made bacon, Canadian bacon, pancetta, and lard sold at Butcher’s Best Market. Whole pastured spring lamb and the whole pig are fabricated on site for retail cuts. Cabbage Hill Farm also provides Butcher’s Best with beef products.

 Spring Mountain Farm chickens are antibiotic- and hormone-free, as well, and are sold along with heritage breed chickens from a farm in Bolton.

Delivered daily, seafood consisting of clams, oysters, wild-caught king salmon, and one selection of white fish, such as grey sole, is carried at Butcher’s Best Market. The market also sells dry sea scallops, a completely natural scallop that is never brined.

The all-natural rainbow trout arrives live in the store from Rowledge Pond in Sandy Hook. Mr Ford processes that fish, like the meats, on site. The Butcher’s Best Market makes its own smoked trout and salmon, and its own gravlax from Pacific king salmon, all of which have proved popular with customers.

A good portion of the display case is dedicated to one of Mr Ford’s specialties, sausages made on site. He offers an extensive variety throughout the seasons, including bratwurst and kielbasa, Italian varieties, Portuguese chorizo, a broccoli rabe and pork sausage, hot lamb sausage, and custom-made sausages to suit the individual. The sausages are each seasoned with Mr Ford’s own spice blend, and include no preservatives or additives. “With our store-made sausage we have links to the past,” he said.

Although fresh meats and fish are the meat market’s forte, a single-door frozen case offers exotic meats such as rabbit, alligator, frogs’ legs, Guinea hens, pheasant, squab and duck, which are also available fresh. “We specialize in hard to find meat items and different cuts,” said Mr Ford, “all driven by customer demand.” Cooked shrimp, lobster tails, and king crab, squid, marrow bones, smoked and natural hocks, and suet for the birds are sold from the freezer case, as well.

Ready to cook items, like meatloaf topped with the store-made smoked bacon, stuffed pork chops, stuffed lamb breast, and chicken breasts stuffed with a pork sausage and bread stuffing, flank steak stuffed with a bleu cheese spinach filling, beef broccoli, and rouladen.

Butcher’s Best Market is the purveyor of its own beef loin aged in a controlled, refrigerated environment, a process that is cherished by meat eaters for the intensely flavorful and tender meat that aged beef provides.

Mr Ford encourages questions from his customers and is eager to provide them with information gleaned from his more than 35 years of experience. With a passion not only for the precise cutting of fresh meats, but for cooking as well, Mr Ford said that he has cooked nearly everything that he carries, and is happy to help with meat selections.

He is willing to provide customers with special orders, will cut chickens or any other meat product to order, or season any product to a customer’s specification, all at no extra cost.

Educating his customers and learning from them is all part of the philosophy behind Butcher’s Best Market, said Mr Ford, and is what sets him apart from other meat purveyors. “Product quality and a passion for what we do make us successful. Customer satisfaction is what pushes my business,” said Mr Ford, and what will drive Butcher’s Best Country Market in the future.

Butcher’s Best Market is at 79 South Main Street, inside Newtown Deli & Catering, and is open Monday through Friday, from 9 am to 5 pm; and on Saturday from 7 am to 5 pm. Closed on Sunday. To preorder or to place a special order, call 203-364-0013. For more information or information on holiday and specialty items, visit butchersbestmarket.com.