A classic butcher shop, reborn
David Samiljan is taking a bet that Noe Valley can’t live without a neighborhood butcher shop, after having one since 1889 — or maybe 1888, depending on who you ask.
This week, Samiljan opened Baron’s Quality Meats in the space that previously housed Drewes Bros. Meats. Until Drewes closed in July, it was known as California’s oldest operating butcher shop.
Samiljan, who worked at Niman Ranch for several years earlier in his career and currently operates Baron’s Meat & Poultry in Alameda, said the main criteria for buying meat is that the animals are never kept in confinement and should be organic or at least given vegetarian feeds. He often carries local products like Mindful Meats and BN Ranch but unlike some high-end butchers, he doesn’t have a strict local-only standard.
“The meat doesn’t have to come from my backyard. I don’t have a problem with pork from Iowa,” he says, explaining that bringing the feed from Iowa to California has a bigger carbon footprint than bringing the meat to California.
The store sells seafood and deli meats in addition to fresh meat and poultry. He plans to add sandwiches and salads after he can get the permits to prepare food in-house; he says he also wants to sell some groceries.
Samiljan has cleaned up the historic space, but it still has its old tile floor and meat cases, which he plans to replace eventually. The room is painted white with red trim. Also newly painted are its meat racks, installed for butchers to transfer sides of cattle and other animals from the walk-in refrigerator to the cutting area, which still has a special door that Samiljan thinks was used to add ice blocks back in pre-refrigeration days.
In back of the shop, there’s an original stable that has since been transformed into a work space that houses a freezer with a door 8-inches thick, which Samiljan had to retrofit. Another old walk-in in the back yard will turn into a dry-aging room.
The meat counter at 1706 Church St. has risen from the ashes many times before. In October 1998, the San Francisco Examiner ran a frontpage story with the headline “Drewes Meats ends 109-yearrun, finally closing its Church Street doors.” But employees Josh and Isaac Epple jumped in just in time, buying it from the outgoing owner and running it for almost two decades, though they faced challenges from the beginning. Things got even more difficult after a Whole Foods moved into the neighborhood in 2009. Then, in 2014, Josh died in a motorcycle accident, after which the store struggled until it ultimately closed in summer 2016.
Samiljan is fully aware he’s stepping into a long tradition, and many neighbors have already stopped by to check in. He planned an opening party for the neighborhood on April 1, bringing in a food truck to cook some Baron’s Meats specialties like his Black Dragon tri-tip (in a sweet-sour marinade) and marinated chicken breasts.
“We call ’em turn and burn,” he says. “You come home from work, stop at day care and stick it on the grill or in the oven.”