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Voted “best butcher” in this year’s Good TimesBest of” Santa Cruz readers’ poll, Shopper’s Corner has one of the few remaining old-time butchers in the county. The grocery’s meat department has been breaking their own beef and whole lamb since 1938.

Led by meat department manager, Paul Bagnasco, who has spent 40 years honing his craft behind the butcher’s block, the staff at Shopper’s Corner are always willing to go the extra mile, making them a favorite among chefs and home cooks.

“There’s always more to learn,” says Bagnasco, whose father was a local butcher. One might say butchery runs in his blood. “Once you think you know it all, you stop improving.”

In the back, assistant manager Josh Woolley is processing a front quarter of beef into primal cuts by hand. A refined process that requires a sharp knife and a deft hand, the department processes up to five heads of beef a week.

After the primal cuts are made, assistant manager Armando Rodriguez processes the fresh meat into consumer cuts behind the counter, its long, immaculate display case filled with perfectly trimmed cuts of meat.

Using every part of each quarter, the skilled staff at Shopper’s grind their own trim into three different types of ground beef. They also make their own bulk house sausage: country style, Italian and chorizo.

“It truly is a lost art,” says Woolley, who has been with the meat department for 15 years.

Indeed, many of the department’s team of fourteen full-time employees have been with the locally owned grocery for many years. They usually start out working at the counter and when they excel there, says Bagnasco, they are taught the other tools of the trade.

As the place to source custom cuts of meat, the counter can get quite busy, especially on the weekends, but you would never know it as the guys behind the counter make it look easy, moving around each other like well-oiled cogs in a finely tuned machine. Even as their hands move skillfully across the counter, they greet each customer with a smile and call out to regulars by name.

Customers frequently ask their advice on which cuts to buy and how to cook them.

Popular for their house-marinated meats, they sell up to 300 pounds of marinated meat a day – they make all of their own marinades and have a tumbler machine in a separate cooler, which greatly shortens the amount of time the meats need to marinade to get optimal flavor.

Bagnasco himself visits the facilities where their meats are grown and harvested to ensure that the highest standards are upheld, from farm to cart. Shopper’s also sources fresh local salmon.


Info: Shopper’s Corner, 622 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. Open daily, 6 a.m. – 9 p.m. Photo: Artist rendering of Shopper’s Corner via Facebook.