You could call Country Butcher Fine Foods Market the Pennsylvania granddaddy of boutique meat markets. Family-owned and operated since 1982, the well-curated, Kennett Square-based butcher shop features an impeccable range of high-quality products, from your usual dinner suspects of beef and poultry, to the less-often encountered elk, bison and rabbit.
The selection is superb, but it’s the service—always with a smile—coming from the behind the counter that’s kept customers coming back. Lead by master butcher Dan Boxler, the white aproned brigade helps customers navigate the extensive selection of custom cuts, house-crafted meat blends, stuffed sausages and more, all along the way relaying cooking techniques and tricks, taking the guesswork out of dinner.
Through the years, Country Butcher has become much more than just an errand run, but also a culinary experience, as the butcher case is just the beginning. Dan’s wife Dorothy curates the shop’s impressive grocery inventory—everything from high-end olive oils, to locally-sourced tomato sauces and pastas, an international and local artisan cheese case, an open kitchen preparing grab-and-go gourmet foods, and even, a cafe and bakery.
With our love for Country Butcher running bone marrow-deep, we recently sat down with the husband-and-wife team running the market’s show, to pick their brains on the business’ history, favorite products, and we even succeeded in scoring some cooking and grilling advice.
Amy Strauss: Where did the idea of Country Butcher come from? What’s the backstory?
Dan Boxler: It came from our love of meat. I was raised on a gentleman’s farm and always appreciated the quality we could raise and have for ourselves. We wanted to create the same thing here and nobody else in the area was doing what we did thirty years ago. We were told people didn’t want to pay the extra money for the extra quality, but we found that they did. Country Butcher has been very successful because we can not only control the quality, but there is no processing done outside the store and we do all of our work here.
And, that’s impressive.
Dan: Since the start, we’ve butchered and custom cut all of our products. We only stock natural products that have been fed grains, and especially not fed any growth hormones, steroids or antibiotics.
I’m sure through the years it has been impressive how much more (and more) people care about the quality of their food.
Dan: We were way ahead of the curve. Fortunately, we have a very loyal customer base who appreciates what we’re doing and still doing. Now there is a very different conception of meat than what there was years ago. People are a lot more interested in what they are buying and where they are getting it, how it was raised, how it was processed, and really, that’s what we built the business on from the very start.
What’s your background? Where did you learn butchering?
Dan: I went to Widener University for my business degree and then, I went to a meat cutting school in Toledo, Ohio to learn the trade.
Dorothy: We opened a month after we were married. I loved to cook; I loved food and I appreciated it. Dan wanted to start his own business and we went for it. When we first opened, everyone in the wholesale and meat industry said we would not survive since we were not carrying pre-packaged meats. We said we wanted to do it like our ancestors had—the European way where you have fresh, custom cuts of meat.
What made you decide to debut in Kennett Square?
Dan: We were both raised locally—myself in West Grove and Dorothy in Avondale. He had our roots here and the location was perfect for what we wanted to do.
How did the business progress through 30 years?
Dorothy: It was per customer demand. We would be cooking some things in the back, and that led to our prepared foods section. We were cooking for each other in the back and customers would inquire what we were making. That led to us opening up a second area of the store of prepared foods, cheeses, and then, they wanted a cafe.
Dan: It’s been a slow progression of where we are now. Our prepared foods area is about 20 years old, with our cafe about 15 years old. The first 10 years we were just the meats in the front. As the businesses in [the building’s] other two spots closed, we were fortunate to be able to expand into the spaces, so it worked out very well.
Would you say the prime meats are your number one priority?
Dan: The meats have always been our calling card, and everything else has stemmed from that and now, everything works very well together.
Dan, you’re the master butcher in house. Do you have many butchering novices come to train under you?
Dan: We have trained many, many people. We have a lot of people who come from the culinary schools and the one thing that they don’t learn a lot of is meat cutting besides the basic primal cuts. They do not learn the true trade of meat cutting [in school], so they come here and work in the kitchen to obtain the skill. I’ve also taught boys in high school who have gone on to use it in other areas, as a trade and as an income.
Dorothy: About five years ago, we started noticing girls coming in from the Culinary Institute of America, and thinking they’d want to work in the bakery or the prepared foods, which has been customary, but no—they wanted to be butchering. I think it is because it is one area that isn’t saturated and it hasn’t been fully tapped into.
Why do you think there has been a recent increase in interest with the art of butchery?
Dan: Butchering was always the part of the industry that was in the background, and now it is coming to the foreground. With the Cooking Network and Food Network, it’s really putting cooking back into the mainstream and people want to be more knowledgeable about how to do things and how to experiment with different cuts versus just your traditional cuts that you can try anytime. They want to venture out and use these different cuts that have been used on the programs. It’s been fun for us as we’ve expanded, allowing us to use the knowledge that we have and share our knowledge with others, and see their appreciation for what we do.
Do you stay in the know of what meat cuts are “trendy,” the “talk of the town”?
Dan: You have to. The newest cuts we see are the hanger steaks, the flat iron, the skirt steaks. Before, you had very few people want these steaks, and now they are in more demand.
What do you think has fallen out of the limelight?
The porterhouse, the T-bone are always going to be around—they are very popular and very good. You can count on them to be tasty and they don’t take a lot of preparation. But, the other cuts, you eat them for a different purpose. It’s the flavor you get from these different cuts, versus the tenderness you might get. When they are prepared properly, they are very, very good.
You carry a wide range of meats in house—far beyond the usual beef and chicken. Can you pass along a breakdown for our readers?
We go from poultry to different game animals—we have pheasant, quail, duck, geese, elk, venison, bison. We try to keep some of their cuts on stock at all times.
And, you break down all of those animals yourself—right?
Yes, and some we cut to order.
What other specialties do you have on hand?
We’re of Italian descent, so of course we have to make our own meatballs. We make 1,000 meatballs a week. It’s a family recipe and we do everything by hand. People don’t really make their own anymore. We also slice our own chip steak from sirloin steak. We make all of our own hamburger patties.
Do you have a special house blend?
Dan: It’s our secret blend we came up with for burgers. We have four different grinds in house—a sirloin; a chuck; a beef, pork and veal; and our signature blend, which is two different cuts of meat that we grind that makes a perfect burger every time.
We have four different burgers we make too. A bacon cheddar, a black and blue with Cajun seasoning on the outside, a Jalapeno with fresh jalapeno peppers cut up in it and with pepperjack cheese, and we have a traditional burger.
We also take it to the next level with two stuffed burgers too—the Kennett Square burger which, of course, has mushrooms stuffed inside of it. We also have a caprese burger with roasted peppers and pesto inside the burger.
Dorothy had mentioned that you were using a sausage recipe of her grandfather.
Dan: We produce a hot and spicy sausage, and we use my wife’s family recipe for wine herb sausage. We also make a fennel sausage—I really like fennel, so I wanted to develop our own recipe for fennel sausage. We make many other varieties along the way. We’ve made a bacon chicken, a buffalo chicken like a buffalo wing—and all you have to do is grill it and dunk it in blue cheese.
Dorothy: These sausages are made with our natural prime meats and natural casings. There are no preservatives.
Would you say that your additional products like cheeses and accoutrement are just to enhance the food experience of Country Butcher?
Dan: Yes, it all stems from the meats. When we started off with just the meats, we had demands to move into other areas. Everything that we now have in the store stemmed from the original … now we have appetizers, desserts—the whole nine yards.
What would you say to someone as advice for navigating the butcher’s case?
Dan: It’s true: a lot of people are intimidated by the butcher’s case. We try to familiarize ourselves with what they are looking for and what the customer is trying to do, and we find a comfort zone. Once we do that, we establish a relationship with the customers. They appreciate that because they are not just a number—they are greeted and taken care of.
You’ve done a great job of that. Since visiting, I feel as though everyone knows each other.
Dorothy: We’ve been referred to as Cheers. We all know each other, the customers. Our employees treat the customers very well.
What’s your current obsession at Country Butcher?
Dan: My obsession has always been with the meats. I’m a carnivore and it’s a guy thing—that’s my comfort zone. I enjoy trying different things in different ways and seeing what works.
Any meats in particular you have to take home?
Dan: A couple years ago we started the Big Daddy steak, and it’s intimidating when you see it, but it is one delicious cut. It’s a two-pound rib steak with the bone in and it melts in your mouth. It’s just a fantastic cut.
Folks feel intimidated when they first look at it, but if they take it home and cook with it with the suggestions that I give them, they always come back and want another one.
I hear Dorothy’s obsession with the store is how it looks, its appearance.
Dorothy: That’s my obsession—I constantly find new products. Always searching, keeping up with the trends and trying new things.
Can you tease at some new combinations you developed?
I just did a local goat cheese with a grilled portabello mushroom and then, I put reconstituted sun-dried tomatoes and olive oil with a little bit of sea salt, and drizzled aged balsamic vinegar on top. I’m constantly finding different combinations. I also recently made a ravioli with truffled butter and fresh sauteed mushrooms and white wine. Then, I did shavings of Moliterno—a delicious, gorgeous truffle cheese. Like marble on the outside. I like the creative aspects of the store.
And, you have all of these products here.
Dorothy: Yes, that’s the advantage.
Since it’s summer and lots of locals are backyard grilling, can you lend some tips to our readers?
Dan: On mistake that many people tend to do is rush things, and you just can’t. Indirect heat is a very good thing.
Twice a year you open up the store to a full-blown tasting, correct?
Dan: Every Saturday, we do tasting with different products we have in stock. But, our full-blown store tastings unfold twice a year. We bring in five or six purveyors, and it’s a party in here. People come early, they don’t leave for two hours. We even roast a whole pig.
When’s the next?
We always a fall tasting the Saturday before Halloween. We always have the other one right before Valentine’s Day.
If someone has never been here, what would you be your selling point?
Dan: The quality of the product we handle—it’s unique, we wouldn’t serve anything that we wouldn’t eat ourselves, just the idea that they are getting the very best that they can get. People come for the whole cooking and eating experience, Country Butcher is really like the way it used to be, like your grandparents did it and that’s still available in the country today. Everything’s been fast-forwarded and big box this and that, yet there still are the same places that do things the way they should be done and handle products the way they should be handled.
Find Country Butcher Fine Foods Market at 145 S. Walnut Street in Kennett Square. More information is available at countrybutchermarket.com.
