Tim Jensen cuts up some prime rib-eye at Village Meat & Wine. Photo by Sam Morris

Interested in feasting on USDA aged prime beef? How about range-fresh Shelton Farms hormone- and antibiotic-free poultry, or perhaps a plump pork chop stuffed with a well-seasoned medley of wild rice and mushrooms?

Look no further than Village Meat & Wine, a Las Vegas specialty market that originally opened in 1977.

Craving something a bit more exotic?

Visit Village Meat for alligator sirloin steak, bison patties, wild boar medallions, elk loin chops, rack of kangaroo, ostrich rib roast, roasted rabbit, rattlesnake and boneless leg of venison, to name just a smattering of the more unusual cuts of meat and game available at the market, which also carries specialty raviolis such as duck, lamb, lobster and pheasant.

No time to sit down for a proper meal? Forget about snacking on beef jerky when there's elk or buffalo jerked meat afoot.

"It's not what you'd find in a typical grocery store," said co-owner Tim Jenson, who purchased the market in 1999 with his wife, Chemaine Jensen, when the original owners, Glen and Emily Hare, retired. "We also make over 20 different sausages ourselves -- including buffalo, ostrich and quail -- and carry Japanese Kobe beef, the highest grade of meat you can get. They massage it and feed it sake and all that."

Indeed, according to the Food Lover's Companion, a comprehensive culinary reference publication, Kobe beef cattle are actually massaged and also fed a special diet that includes a lot of beer, which results in beef that is extraordinarily tender and full flavored, not to mention extravagantly expensive and rarely available in the United States. Kobe hamburger at Village, for example, runs $5.98 a pound versus about $3 for supermarket hamburger meat.

While the market's myriad meats all sell well, Jensen -- a journeyman meat-cutter since age 17 -- said USDA prime beef, which according to the Food Lover's Companion is typically reserved for fine restaurants and specialty butcher shops, is the market's bread and butter.

"Prime is our No. 1 seller, and that's what keeps our doors open," Jensen said.

Just ask Donald Bell, a professor in the food and beverage department at UNLV's William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration, who visits Village a couple of times a week to pick up prime steaks.

"That's why we come here -- they're the best in town," said Bell, a regular customer for the past four or five years who has referred numerous friends and colleagues. "Any specialty meat we need at the college we also get here. (The Jensens) are very nice to work with, too."

So how does the market rate price-wise when it comes to USDA prime meat?

"Our boneless prime rib-eye is $13.98 a pound," Jensen said. "Other places in town charge significantly more."

Indeed, Whole Foods Market, a natural and organic foods retailer with 166 stores in North America and the United Kingdom, including a year-old local location on West Charleston Boulevard, charges $24.99 a pound for boneless USDA prime rib-eye, according to an employee in the store's meat department, who went on to note that the cattle were grain-fed and the meat is hormone- and antibiotic-free.

Likewise, Primetime Meat Market, a Two-year-old Henderson butcher shop and specialty market loscated on West Horizon Ridge Parkway, offers USDA prime rib-eye beef for $20.99 a pound, according to its Web site.

"We set our quality high and keep our prices down," Jensen said. "We've been around so long we have prices locked in."

But as its name suggests, there's more to the market than merely meat.

Village also stocks selected wines in numerous varietals from a plethora of nations, including Australia, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, South Africa and the United States. Prices range from $6 a bottle to $150, although the typical sale averages $6 to $12.

"We try to carry hard-to-find wines from around the world," Jensen said. "We've got wines from China, Israel, Romania -- Romanian wines are probably the best in the world."

But what's fine wine without a wedge of imported, gourmet cheese served on the side?

"We carry 40 or 50 varieties of cheese," Jensen said.

But if Tim Jensen is the market's meat maestro, Chemaine Jensen is Village's cheese whiz. And we're not talking Velveeta.

Village carries a vast variety of imported boutique cheeses, including Asiago, Camembert, Cheshire, Port-Salut, mushroom or garlic Brie, Cambozola, lemon Stilton, Roquefort, Edam, kasseri and mascarpone.

So what are local cheese lovers stocking up on?

"One of my No. 1 seller is the Vermont white sharp cheddar, which is $9.98 a pound," she said. "We also have a popular applewood smoked cheddar for $10.98 a pound, and a cheese called Huntsman, which is a layered cheese with cheddar and English Stilton. There are also a few I only bring in for the holiday, like Windsor red cheddar with port wine, which is red and white and really pretty."

Upon purchasing Village Meat & Wine in 1999, the Jensens expanded the business, leasing the adjacent suite and doubling the size of the market, which is packed with a wide array of specialty products not typically available at the neighborhood grocery store. The selection of gourmet goodies includes truffles, caviar, pbtis, spices, seasonings, sauces, dried pasta, olive oils, vinegars, crackers, cookies, coffee and tea and other specialty items such as marinated mushrooms and olives, and Italian roasted peppers.

As one customer was overheard to comment as she browsed Village Meat, "This store makes you hungry just walking down the aisles."

The Jensens also installed a humidor and now offer two dozen different cigars ranging in price from $5 to $20. The decision to carry cigars made sense to the couple.

"Basically, cigars are enjoyed at the end of the meal, like having a dessert wine and a cigar," Chemaine Jensen said. "And Tim smokes cigars."

Over the years, Village Meat & Wine has garnered an unusually loyal clientele, with a diverse customer base that was seemingly unaffected by the change in ownership.

"We get lawyers, doctors, politicians, your blue-collar workers like us -- it's a nice variety," Chemaine Jensen said, adding that some people go out of their way to shop at the market. "We have people who come in from St. George, Lake Havasu and Kingman."

The Jensens attribute the success of the market to hard work and long hours coupled with extra-friendly customer service.

"We really try to cater to our customers -- that's really important and that's what keeps people coming back," Chemaine Jensen said. "And when you have so many regulars you get to know them, you learn about their families, and that's the nice part about being a small business. A lot of people like the fact that it brings back memories of when they were kids going to the corner store and everybody knew their name."

Meat markets stake survival on prime products, superior service By Providence Cicero Special to The Seattle Times

When was the last time you brought home hamburger freshly ground and wrapped in butcher paper?

Independent service meat markets, where butchers cut, trim and grind meats to order, are a rare breed. Like other independent retailers, they must compete against big-box stores like Costco, supermarket chains and even specialty stores such as Whole Foods Market, which include service meat departments.

When today's consumers consider where to spend their hard-earned cash, convenience and price often trump service.

But meat markets remain. Many have been around for generations. Their proprietors say they are thriving, though they acknowledge the business has changed.

Service drives their success as much as product. That means passing along recipes and cooking tips or offering marinated, smoked and stuffed cuts to save customers prep time at home. Some are specializing in all-natural, organic, kosher or halal meats — the latter two handled according to prescribed religious guidelines — because that's what more consumers want.

 

Family business

Some in the trade think meat cutters are an endangered species as meatpacking houses do more and more of the cutting for chain stores, and machines do the packaging. But those who started in their teens as "clean-up kids" and learned butchering from their fathers and grandfathers find it hard to do anything else.

Last year, when Crystal Meats closed after 57 years at Pike Place Market, two former employees, Shawn Beresford and Ted Coffman, thought long and hard about whether they wanted to stay in the business.

"We love cutting meat," says Beresford, who works with the knives his grandfather, an Iowa meat cutter, used.

The pair opened Shawn and Ted's Quality Meat Market in Renton in December, selling only all-natural beef, pork and chicken. They also have a smokehouse. Using family recipes, they hickory-smoke sausage, Canadian bacon, chicken and turkey breast as well as pepperoni, an item so popular they move 150 pounds of it a week.

 

 

Shawn and Ted's Quality Meat Market opened in December in Renton and sells only all-natural beef, pork and chicken.

Jeff Green, who with his wife, Trisha, owns B & E Meats & Seafoods, says, "Stores like Whole Foods and Metropolitan Markets are only doing what the independents have been doing for years." Mostly, however, he sees a trend toward less service. "People seem willing to give up the service for the savings."       

 

Ted Coffman, left, and Shawn Beresford of Shawn and Ted's Quality Meat Market in Renton work with Vashon Island beef from Misty Isle. "We love cutting meat," says Beresford, who works with the knives his grandfather, an Iowa meat cutter, used.

"Quality sells wherever you are." The store is set up so customers can see how everything is handled. "We do all our work in front of the customers," says Beresford. "People ask a lot of questions, and I spend a lot of time talking to customers. They want to know how we do things and be educated about what they are buying."

B & E Meats & Seafood in Des Moines is an offshoot of the B & E in Burien, opened in 1958. Jeff Green, co-owner with wife Trisha, says service keeps them competitive.  His business has grown since Green's father opened the Burien shop in 1958, branching out into seafood and custom smoking and opening a second shop.

 

Tough to break into

Opening a meat market requires a steep initial investment in machinery and equipment. That, coupled with small margins, long hours and physically demanding work, might be why there are so few newcomers to the business.

 

  "The difference between a supermarket and an independent market like this is that my customers are my family. It's a living, breathing force in the community. You become part of people's lives."