Swanson’s Meat Market––

An Old-Fashioned Butcher Shop Gains A Following

By Kaaren Valenta

After vanishing from the local landscape more than a decade ago, the old-fashioned butcher shop has reappeared, offering custom-cut, all-natural meat and poultry, gourmet cheese, and a selection of top-quality delicatessen items.

Visitors to Swanson’s Meat Market in the Clock Tower Plaza on Route 25 in Monroe will find old-fashioned wood floors and lighted meat cases filled with premium Hereford beef. A full-time butcher with 35 years of experience works behind the counter to knowledgeably answer customers’ questions and cut the meat to order.

The shop owner, Newtown resident Don Roebuck, had built a successful career in the shellfish business long before he turned his attention to meat. After getting out of the Army in 1980, he operated the Ridgefield Fish Market for 12 years, then became a wholesale supplier of clams, oysters, and, sometimes, lobsters. But when the time came to open his own business, he decided that what the area needed was an old-fashioned butcher shop.

Not that he originally intended to operate his own store.

“I handle 10 tons of shellfish a week,” Mr Roebuck, 47, said. “I buy it from the fishermen at the Long Island Sound and sell at the fish pier in Boston. I bring some fish back for the Swanson’s Fish Market and a few restaurants like the Stony Hill Inn.”

But when a virus wiped out many of the oyster beds in the Sound about five years ago, and then 90 percent of the lobster died from a yet-to-be determined cause, Mr Roebuck began worrying about what might happen if there was a big spill from an oil barge in Long Island Sound. He decided that he needed to diversify.

“I decided that what the area really needed was an old-fashioned butcher shop like those that existed before they were put out of business by the one-stop shopping of the supermarkets beginning in the 1980s,” he said.

The result was the opening of Swanson’s Meat Market a year ago this month. Originally Mr Roebuck was a silent partner. But in January, he took over the butcher shop and changed the entire operation, bringing in a full-time experienced butcher, Gary Olewnik, and also a chef, James Lynch, to do catering and prepare lunches to go.

Swanson’s stocks only Ridgefield Farms, a chemical-free beef that has been voted the “Best Restaurant Beef in America” for the past three years by the American Tasting Institute, which awarded it the gold medal. Headquartered in Ridgefield, the company raises the cattle in the state of Washington, where the herd benefits from a mild climate, clean air, and a diet rich in natural grains. The result is a consistently outstanding beef, according to the ATI.

Swanson’s sells all-natural chicken and turkey and top quality pork, lamb and veal. It also offers Fossil Farms game meat including buffalo, alligator, game sausage, venison patties, frog legs, muscovy duck breast, baby pheasant, rabbit, quail, and ostrich steaks, strips, and burgers. At St Patrick’s Day there is real old-fashioned corned beef in a barrel.

“We are like an upscale deli in the city as opposed to the average deli,” Mr Roebuck said. “We carry only a few cold cuts –– Boars Head –– because we will cook up a whole roast beef right from the case, or a ham to slice.”

Three to nine luncheon specials are available daily including such choices as porketta, baked ham, steak sandwiches, barbecued chicken, and perhaps a lobster sandwich, along with freshly made salads. There is an upscale cheese section with English Stilton and Wensleydale, Swiss Gruyere, Italian Fontina, Old Amsterdam Gouda, and other cheeses from around the world.

Morton & Bassett spices from San Francisco sit next to a freezer stocked with Micalizzi ice cream and Italian ices from Bridgeport. There are Black Tie frozen hors d’oeuvres, David’s Cookies that are baked daily in the store, and a selection of gourmet coffees.

“We have restaurant-quality Drakes pastas with two to three times the usual filling and the most tender pasta. They are some of the best I’ve ever had,” Mr Roebuck said.

When Mr Roebuck took over the restaurant, one of his first priorities was to bring in an experienced butcher. Gary Olewnik, 48, has been butchering meat for nearly his whole life, beginning with jobs at Antonelli’s slaughterhouse and Deerfield Meat in Derby, a shop where none of the meat cutting ever was done ahead of time. For the past 20 years he has operated his own game-butchering business in Prospect. On his days off, however, he is a commercial lobster fisherman out of Norwalk, which is how he happened to know Don Roebuck.

Chef James Lynch had returned to his hometown of Monroe after working at the Wildcat Inn and Tavern in Jackson, N.H., and in Cape Cod and New Orleans. He now prepares the luncheon specials and catering items.

The store is open seven days a week, and also has milk, eggs, butter, and bread for sale for the convenience of customers. Store hours are Monday through Friday 9–7, Saturday, 9–6, Sunday 10–4. For more information call 445-8754.