{"id":247271,"date":"2014-05-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-09T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/san-diegos-first-whole-animal-butchery-coming-to-north-park\/"},"modified":"2014-05-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T07:00:00","slug":"san-diegos-first-whole-animal-butchery-coming-to-north-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/san-diegos-first-whole-animal-butchery-coming-to-north-park\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego\u2019s first whole-animal butchery coming to North Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frank Sabatini Jr. | Uptown News<\/p>\n

\"(l<\/a>
(l to r) Trey Nichols and James Holtslag want to take the \u201cmystery out of meat.\u201d (Courtesy Assault Media Marketing)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Much of what you don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cbreakdowns.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going for a modern-traditional feel. We\u2019ll have three large windows on the west-facing side of the building that will allow pedestrians to see into our butchering area,\u201d said Trey Nichols, who is launching the venture with college pal James Holtslag after raising nearly $52,000 from a Kickstarter campaign.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cpastured,\u201d meaning they\u2019re raised under free-range conditions and without hormones and antibiotics.<\/p>\n

\"James<\/a>
James Holtslag of the Heart and Trotter (Courtesy Assault Media)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Holtslag mastered the art of butchery during an apprenticeship at Lindy & Grundy in West Hollywood, which will lose its status as Southern California\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was actually a vegetarian from middle school until college,\u201d Nichols said. \u201cBut once I started seeing animals not kept in cages, I relaxed my stand on it.\u201d
\nThe men were driven to pursue the business because \u201cwe got mad at the food system \u2014 not knowing where our meat came from,\u201d added Nichols, recalling that the idea to open a butchery came about while grilling steaks at a barbecue that he was hosting with Holtslag.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 Snack Shack. They have also maintained a rental kitchen for supplying freshly butchered meats to local consumers through their web site (theheartandtrotter.com).<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

A covered patio in front will allow customers to eat prepared foods, and eventually imbibe on beer and wine once the shop\u2019s alcohol license is approved.<\/p>\n

As with other whole-animal butcheries that have trickled back onto the country\u2019s landscape after nearly disappearing over the past 40 years, every edible part of the animals are utilized. And what isn\u2019t fit for human consumption, Heart and Trotter will use for making dog food.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to take the mystery out of meat,\u201d Holtslag said prior to securing the lease in North Park.<\/p>\n

When asked how the butchery\u2019s concept differs from that at Iowa Meat Farms and Siesel\u2019s Old Fashioned Meats in San Diego, for example, Nichols said it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cEducation is a huge part of what we do,\u201d Nichols added. \u201cCustomers can come in to learn about different cuts of the animals, how to cook them and how they were raised. We\u2019ll also be offering classes on butchery and sausage making.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frank Sabatini Jr. | Uptown News<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":247272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"San Diego\u2019s first whole-animal butchery coming to North Park","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}