Meet Angela, Jackie, and Jacquie, butchers at Avedano’s Meats in San Francisco.
“It’s definitely a little harder trying to become a butcher as a female. People look at you and don’t necessarily think butcher. But you can’t give up. Show them your desire and determination. Keep showing them until they get it. Eventually your perseverance will win. If you want something bad enough, don’t ever stop till you get it. Anybody can do anything.” -Jacquie Smith
“Avedanos is the only shop in the city of San Francisco that does whole animal butchery, for all its animals, on the premises. Everything comes from Northern California. Everything is fully pastured raised. Avedanos knows the farms and farmers. Avedanos knows what the animals are eating! And Avedanos uses every single part of the animal! The chef in me also wanted to learn how to make pates, rillettes, sausages, how to properly smoke meats, cure meats, age meats. Avedanos does everything! I talked them into taking a chance on me. Gave them 200% everyday. A couple years later, they asked me to become a partner!
An ordinary day for us starts around 8am. We start cutting to fill up the case. We start with the chickens, then the pigs, the lambs, and finally the cows. We prepare a bed of crushed ice for our fish delivery. It takes about two hours to fill the case in the morning. We open the doors at 11am. There are usually people waiting to come in. After our first wave of customers, we can usually find time to start projects. We make delicious panini sandwiches and have a steady stream of people all day coming for those. Brine the briskets for pastrami, the brine pig legs for hams, start smoking the chickens, and bacon. There always something to do. We close the doors at 8pm and scrub the place from top to bottom.
We are not just a butcher shop. You can get everything you need to make dinner at Avedanos. We get fresh pasta delivered, from the Pasta Shop in Berkeley. Bread delivered from Crepe and Brioche, in the city. All of our produce is organic, and properly in season.
I love the customers! I love talking to people about the best way to cook each cut. Since we do whole animal butchery, we definitely have cuts nobody has ever heard of. But I will tell exactly what to do for perfect results. People come back and tell me all about their dinner. I love turning people on to new cuts and cooking methods. I enjoy the craft of it, everyday improving my technique” -Jacquie Smith
Crafted in Carhartt 