ETNA, Maine — Four months ago, Andy Watson’s business burned to the ground. Today, he’s back to work in a new building.
Watson’s Custom Butcher Shop on Carter Road caught fire on January 27.
“Flat. Absolutely flat. There was absolutely nothing here,” said Watson of what was left of his business.
Watson said he lost furnaces, heaters, coolers, tools and 20,000 pounds of customers’ meat in the blaze.
“I used to joke that I was a butcher without a knife. We lost everything,” he said.
With the help of J.M. Brown Construction of Hampden and other contractors, Watson is back in business. Last Friday, Watson’s crew was smoking pork for the first time in the new building.
“If it wasn’t for J.M. Brown contractors, I wouldn’t be here,” said Watson.
He said they built the new building on the existing slab, and it looks mostly the same as the old one.
“They didn’t really have any blueprints. They went by what I had to tell them,” Watson said. “I was standing there when they were doing it.”
Most things were kept the same, he said.
“It’s all the same equipment. We just changed a few things,” said Watson. “We made it a little more energy efficient. We put in some different light fixtures, better insulation. Everything is basically right back the way it was.”
Watson said the investigator from his insurance company pointed to a refrigeration unit as the cause of the fire. The insurance company paid for about 75 percent of the cost to rebuild, he said.
“They paid us everything we were due. We just didn’t have our insurance up to where it should have been. Like the rest of the world, we were underinsured,” said Watson, who estimated the cost to rebuild at $345,000.
The butcher shop was inspected on May 11 and reopened three days later, he said. The business initially opened five years ago on the fifth-generation farm.
“I haven’t had a complaint from anyone about going to work,” said Watson.
Work had been waiting for him, he said, as customers patiently waited for his business to be back up and running.
“I didn’t realize this business meant as much to the community and the people around here as it does,” said Watson. “Our cooler is full. We have work coming out of our ears. We’re very, very lucky. I’ve been talking to other butcher shops around and they have absolutely no work.”
Watson said he’s done little advertising since opening in order to get the work completed for customers he had lined up.
A real smoke house? I’m impressed, nothing like real smoked bacon instead of the chemical injected smoke flavoring, best of luck to this business.
The place I work for did some of the work, the real trickle down economy does not come from millionaires, but small businesses.
3 or 4 employees and this business could easily be in the same tax bracket as every Dem “tax the rich” proposal made in the last 20 years.
Every business would love to have the reputation he apparently has. Good luck to him!
Just picked up my pig from them for my pig roast this weekend. The facility is excellent and they did an excellent job and are very nice to do business with. I will be going back there for sure. Im happy to support a Maine Small Business….especially one that is 5th gen family run business.
I’ll make it a point to buy from this business.
So glad he was able to rebuild in these tough economic times.
Good luck, Mr. Watson.
Good luck and good to hear a nice
story coming out of all this.
I’ve been doing business with Watsons for years. They deliver what they promise, on time at a fair price. They’re a hard working team with a clean and accessible facility. Congratulations on reopening and I look forward to doing business with you for years to come.