A new full-service butcher shop and local foods market has opened in Brewer, offering hand-cut meats, Maine produce and other local items.
Emery’s Meat & Produce opened in October in the Twin City Plaza on State Street in Brewer, next door to the Winterport Boot Shop. It’s the third location for the family-owned meat market. Emery’s has other shops in Waterville and Gardiner.
“We’d been looking to expand to the Bangor area for a while now, and the folks of Brewer just bent over backwards to help us find a place,” said Leon Emery, owner of the markets.
Emery’s will offer an array of local and western meats at the 2,000-square-foot store, specializing in all cuts of gourmet beef. Emery’s also offers poultry, pork, lamb, fish and even goat and rabbit.
“We’ll cut something special for you, like a hanger steak or a full brisket. We carry skin-on pork belly. We sell chicken feet,” Emery said. “We want to be your meat cutter. Box stores have their place, but the mom and pop meat market is the safest way to go.”
The shop will also sell local produce when in season, breads and rolls, sauces and spices, other grilling accoutrements, and, as Emery put it, “pickled everything.”
Emery has been in the meat business for his entire life and says he first cut meat when he was 6 years old. Now 62, he has owned slaughterhouses, herds of cattle and even imported a herd of deer to Maine. He has previously owned meat markets in Augusta, Monmouth and Newport, all of which closed in order to open the current locations in Gardiner, Waterville and, now, Brewer.
“I really take a lot of pride in knowing how to buy and sell meat,” Emery said. “We’re old-fashioned meat cutters. You’ve got to know your butcher.”
Emery’s Meat & Produce will be open Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. For more information, like them on Facebook.
