New old-fashioned butcher shop and deli opens in Morro Bay
Local foodies searching for high-quality meats and sausages made in house have a new option: Morro Bay Butcher & Deli.
Three partners with varying backgrounds and culinary training launched their old-fashioned butcher shop at 911 Main St., right before Christmas during a local surge of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Why there? Why then?
For former school chums Evan Martz and Geoff and Jillian Montgomery all in their mid-30s, the timing seemed right.
“We found Morro Bay (and) fell in love with it, with everything it has to offer, beauty, the small community feeling,” Jillian Montgomery said. “Then the space became available, and we jumped on it.”
In addition to custom-cut meats, shop-made sausages and local cheeses, the business sells sandwiches and small-batch, made-from-scratch foods available by the serving or the pound.
Among Morro Bay Butcher & Deli’s sources are NZ Ranch in Edna Valley for pork, Autonomy Farms in Bakersfield for pasture-raised chicken and Molnar Cattle Co. in Cayucos and Rudnick Cattle Co. in San Luis Obispo for beef.
Among the store’s cheese purveyors are Stepladder Ranch in San Simeon and Northern California’s Cowgirl Creamery.
Morro Bay butcher’s shop opens on Main Street
The small Main Street storefront most recently housed T.K.D. Surf Shop, which closed suddenly a while back. But butcher Geoff Montgomery noted that the space was previously home to a coffee shop, a French restaurant and other eateries.
That meant Montgomery and his partners saved big bucks by not having to install some of the costly infrastructure, such as a ducting chase for the vent-hood exhaust fan. There already was one in place from the shop through the upstairs living space to the roof.
Montgomery estimated that the cost of the initial remodel and work at around $150,000, including labor, parts, supplies, materials and equipment, with a good chunk of that “going toward the range hood, plumbing and kitchen set up.”
The partners did much of the work themselves, under the guidance of general contractor Jeff Smart of Green Smart Construction.
Butcher, chef and cheese expert run business
Although the trio hail from different parts of the country — Evan Martz was born in Wichita, Kansas; San Diego native Jillian Montgomery was raised in Wisconsin, and her husband was born and raised in Jackson Hole, Wyoming — shared schooling experiences brought them together.
Then fate brought them to Morro Bay, where they started out selling meat at the weekly farmer’s market, close to the location of their future shop.
“As a full-service butcher’s shop, we have a passion for animals, meat and cooking,” the partners say on their website.
But they share more than a vision for their business. They also appreciate the same kind of lifestyle, with a balance between hard work and time off.
“We all come from service backgrounds in very taxing jobs, with no time for friends, family and ourselves. We feel that’s an outdated way of life, an unsustainable way of doing things,” Geoff Montgomery said. “We’ve seen too many people burn out, and we want to do this for a long time.”
Jillian Montgomery is in charge of the cheese department and she handles most of the customer service, unless someone has a question for butcher Geoff Montgomery or chef Evan Martz. They handle those queries themselves, enhancing the personal service aspect of their shop.
In addition to classic cuts such as tri-tip and tenderloin, Morro Bay Butcher & Deli’s most popular products include a pesto chicken sandwich, asparagus lemon feta cheese salad and salty caramel bread pudding. Customers also crave a couple of of the store’s soft cow’s milk cheeses: Stepladder’s Ragged Point and Cowgirl’s triple cream.
So, what cut do the meat market mavens like best? Geoff Montgomery and Evan Martz love rib-eye beef.
Jillian Montgomery said with a laugh, “I love everything.” Her husband grinned and said, “Whatever comes off the grill is good for her.”
They recognize that some meat-buying customers may prefer the most tender cuts of beef, which Geoff says are the tenderloin, filet and rib eye.
“But a lot of times, it all comes down to how you cook it,” he said. “Take a brisket. Cook it in the crockpot for a couple of hours and it becomes very flavorful and easy to eat. That’s one thing I love about this job, interacting with people, reeducating them.”
Morro Bay Butcher & Deli
Morro Bay Butcher & Deli is open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.
For details, call 805-225-1440, email info@morrobaybutcher.com or visit www.morrobaybutcher.com or Facebook.com/morrobaybutcher.
This story was originally published March 24, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
