Hind Quarter Meat Co. celebrated their one-year anniversary on August 23rd, and business is booming. The local butcher shop, owned by Jack Clarke and Keiran Papp, has quickly established itself as a trusted source of locally and ethically-sourced, quality meats.
Jack made the move from Kingston to Toronto in his early 20s, pursuing a career in music. He continued to work in the food industry as a cook, eventually working his way up to head chef. But when restaurant work started getting in the way of music, he sought out a day job that would keep his evenings free. With some butchering experience from his restaurant jobs, Jack applied to a variety of butcher shops— and happily, he landed a job at Cumbrae’s, a renowned butcher on Toronto’s Queen St. W. “And I’ve been doing it ever since,” Jack says.
Jack and Keiran carry a variety of meats and products. They sell the usual beef, pork, lamb, and chicken (all from Ontario), as well as dry-aged beef. In supermarkets you will often see wet-aged beef, which means that the animal is deboned and vacuum sealed relatively quickly after slaughter. For Hind Quarter Meat Co., a whole animal butcher, the animal arrives to them in one piece.
The butchers break down the side of beef and age it on a shelf, keeping the bone in place and allowing the meat to lose its moisture. This dry-aging creates richer and deeper flavours. If that wasn’t convincing enough for you, Jack says that dry-aged beef is the reason he’s a butcher.
The shop also carries cuts that are under-utilized and extra affordable. These include tri-tips, skirt steaks, spider steaks, flat-iron steaks, and vegas steaks.
“You don’t find those everywhere, but we tend to always have them because we’re breaking the full animal down,” says Jack. “These cuts are really tasty and they’re under-appreciated. You can get them quite a lot cheaper than you can ribeyes and tenderloins.”
If you are in need of cooking advice for these different types of cuts, Jack and Keiran themselves are serving you at the shop and are more than happy to give you some tips. They are also happy to answer any questions you might have about their meat and how it’s sourced.
“People know they can trust us— that we’re very open about where we source everything and how it’s produced. We make a really strong effort to keep things as local as we can,” says Jack.
In addition to cuts of meat, Hind Quarter sells prepared foods, all of which they make in-house. These delicious dishes include lasagnas, chicken and steak pies, scalloped potatoes, loaded baked potatoes, jalapeño cornbread, and roasted Brussels sprouts.
The shop also sells hot sandwiches daily, such as their beloved steak and cheese sandwich and a rotating second sandwich. Often this second option is their Nashville hot fried chicken sandwich, which is received particularly well from locals.
“It’s hard to make enough of them,” says Jack.
The two butchers are gearing up for the holidays right now, with a holiday menu launching around the end of November. Meats available for purchase will include turkeys from VG Meats in Perth County, which are hormone and antibiotic-free; whole Moulard ducks from Quebec; dry-aged prime ribs; bone-in hams from Perth Pork; and fresh Ontario lamb from Forsyth Farms. From the kitchen they will also be selling stuffing, bacon and chive scalloped potatoes, butternut squash soup, house-made gravy, shepherd’s pies and more. There will be plenty for customers to choose from for their holiday meals.
Another plan in the works for Hind Quarter Meat Co. is a Movember fundraiser, celebrating Keiran’s famous ‘stache. An e-newsletter and posters in the shop with a QR code will take their customers straight to a Movember Foundation donation link. At the end of November, the business will be making their own financial contribution to the foundation too.
Although they’re only a year old, Hind Quarter recently won a BarrieToday Reader Favourite award in the Butchers and Meat Shops category. For Jack and Keiran, it means a lot to receive the recognition from their customers and neighbours. Jack has lived in Barrie since 2017 and remarks, “it’s a really nice place to live. It’s clean and safe and a great place to raise my son.”
Jack thanks those who voted them best butcher shop, and says that he and Keiran are looking forward to continuing to improve their offerings and come up with great new food for the community to enjoy.
“Our customers give us a lot of praise and good feedback, and they make us feel good about what we’re doing.”
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This article was sponsored by Hind Quarter Meat Co., a 2024 BarrieToday Reader Favourite.