Honest Foods closing butcher shop; staff shuffled
A local company is closing the doors of its neighbourhood butcher shop.
And while another two Honest Foods locations are temporarily closed, they are scheduled to reopen next week.
Honest Meat Co. was shuttered in recent weeks, and The Beverly on Locke and newly opened Doughboy Donuts closed this week. The latter two will be open for business again on Wednesday, according to Joe Accardi of Forge & Foster, out of which Honest Foods Inc. is a collaboration.
“It all just kind of happened at one time,” he said.
The temporary closures at the two locations are due to a staff shuffle, Accardi said.
“Our executive chef, it didn’t work out with him,” he said. “So we just have to get our teams back up and running.”
As for Honest Meat, the company was not able to make its business model work.
The idea was to use an entire animal from a business at Ottawa Street North and Cannon Street East.
“It caught us by surprise, all the work that it requires to get a full animal all the way to be able to be served to the customer,” Accardi said.
The operation functioned as a supply chain for some of the restaurants in the Honest Foods stable while also selling custom cuts retail.
“With Honest Meat closing, it kind of had to change our supply chain a little bit.”
Other Honest Foods locations, including The Black Forest Inn and Bonanza Bakery, remain open, Accardi noted.
He said the company also had to deal with some initial kinks at Doughboy, including changing the menu to rework one dough recipe that was not cooking properly.
Accardi said the company thanks everyone for their patience.
“This is hard for all of us, especially with the Honest Meat closure. That was something that was really close to our heart but we just couldn’t make it work,” he said.
“At the end of the day, hopefully it’s just 10 days of a little bit of a step back but I think it will make a better product and make everyone happy come into the new year,” Accardi said.