Frank Sabatini Jr. | Uptown News

Much of what you don’t see occur on butcher blocks before your favorite cuts of meat hit the supermarket shelves will be revealed at The Heart and Trotter, a whole-animal butchery coming by the end of summer to North Park.

Livestock such as cows, pigs, chickens and lambs will arrive to the butchery already pre-slaughtered. Although after that, customers from both inside and outside the shop will be able to witness their complete “breakdowns.”

The butchery is set to move into a ground floor space inside The Boulevard Center, a newly renovated two-story commercial building at 2855 El Cajon Blvd., which already claims a salon, gym and health store as its tenants.

“We’re going for a modern-traditional feel. We’ll have three large windows on the west-facing side of the building that will allow pedestrians to see into our butchering area,” said Trey Nichols, who is launching the venture with college pal James Holtslag after raising nearly $52,000 from a Kickstarter campaign.

The money has allowed the Virginia transplants to purchase grinders, slicers, a band saw and vacuum sealer, but it is Holtslag who wields the knives for dissecting animals that will be sourced from ranchers within a 250-mile radius of San Diego. Nichols assures they are all “pastured,” meaning they’re raised under free-range conditions and without hormones and antibiotics.

Holtslag mastered the art of butchery during an apprenticeship at Lindy & Grundy in West Hollywood, which will lose its status as Southern California’s only whole-animal butchery once The Heart and Trotter opens. Nichols, in the meantime, plans on keeping his job in medical sales, which ironically involves selling heart devices.

“I was actually a vegetarian from middle school until college,” Nichols said. “But once I started seeing animals not kept in cages, I relaxed my stand on it.”
The men were driven to pursue the business because “we got mad at the food system — not knowing where our meat came from,” added Nichols, recalling that the idea to open a butchery came about while grilling steaks at a barbecue that he was hosting with Holtslag.

Since then, they spent the last year branding The Heart and Trotter by holding sporadic butchery events at Uptown restaurants such as Alchemy, Toronado and Carnitas’ Snack Shack. They have also maintained a rental kitchen for supplying freshly butchered meats to local consumers through their web site (theheartandtrotter.com).

Their upcoming brick-and-mortar shop will feature a 14-foot display case stocked with both popular and lesser-known cuts of meats as well as pates, sausages and house-cured charcuterie. Retail space has also been set aside within the shop for local produce, milk, eggs and cookbooks.

A covered patio in front will allow customers to eat prepared foods, and eventually imbibe on beer and wine once the shop’s alcohol license is approved.

As with other whole-animal butcheries that have trickled back onto the country’s landscape after nearly disappearing over the past 40 years, every edible part of the animals are utilized. And what isn’t fit for human consumption, Heart and Trotter will use for making dog food.

“We want to take the mystery out of meat,” Holtslag said prior to securing the lease in North Park.

When asked how the butchery’s concept differs from that at Iowa Meat Farms and Siesel’s Old Fashioned Meats in San Diego, for example, Nichols said it’s similar, with the exception that the animals are sourced regionally and arrive in whole form, regardless if they have already been halved or quartered in some cases at the slaughterhouses.

“Education is a huge part of what we do,” Nichols added. “Customers can come in to learn about different cuts of the animals, how to cook them and how they were raised. We’ll also be offering classes on butchery and sausage making.”