New York Butcher Shoppe seeks to bring high-quality meats, meals closer to home

Some of Columbia’s most vibrant neighborhoods are about to get a new, full-fledged butcher shop, whose owner hopes it will double as one-stop place for busy residents to grab dinner on the way home.

New York Butcher Shoppe is to open in September at the corner of Woodrow and Gervais streets near Melrose Heights.

“We’re on the going-home-side of downtown,” said Jim Tindal, chief executive officer of Butcher Shoppes International, the parent company. “It’s very easy just to drop in, pick up everything you need for dinner and get right back on the road going home.”

The upscale butcher shop at 1500 Woodrow St. will specialize in high-quality, fresh cut meats and the trimmings for a full-fledged meal. The downtown store will be a partnership between the corporation, founded in 1999 in Mt. Pleasant, and the building’s owner, Columbia native Bobby Boyle. Boyle bought the circa 1950 structure two years ago.

That location will be the company’s eighth store, with a ninth under construction in Augusta, Ga. Other stores are in in Greenville, Atlanta, Ga. (each of which have two sites), Charleston, Birmingham, Ala., and Ponte Vedre Beach, Fla., Tindal said. A New York Butcher Shoppe in the Lake Carolina community in Northeast Columbia has closed.

The Columbia store is sandwiched between the city center several neighborhoods, including Forest Hills, Heathwood, Lake Katherine and the town of Forest Acres, Boyle said. Gervais Street carried an average of 18,000 cars a day two years ago, even as the local economy had just began to shake off the effects of the recession.

“The demographics in this area – household income, number of rooftops and traffic count – all fit our model and work very well for us,” Tindal said. “It is a neighborhood feel and that is where our stores seem to do best, because we are a neighborhood butcher shop. We will know everybody by name, because it’s a relationship as much as a place to come in and grab dinner.”

The New York Butcher Shoppe concept is intended to satiate a high-quality, pick-up-and-take-home appetite. Customers will be able to enjoy homemade chicken parmesan salad and bread, or fillets and asparagus, Tindal said. The shop also will offer deli sandwiches to go, made from certified angus beef, roast beef, pastrami and corned beef.

The shop’s entire staff will have culinary training as well as be able to help customers with meal planning, including for parties.

But the focus remains on meats, especially hard-to-find varieties in its frozen section. Customers can complement their meals with about 180 brands of wine, cheeses and grocery items from local to international, Tindal said.

“We are an old timey butcher shop where you come in and we’ll have steaks, lamb, veal, pork and chicken,” he said. “We cut anything to order. We carry only high-choice prime beef. We have a whole line of prepared entrees and sides that you can take home and heat and eat.

“Everything you want for dinner tonight in one stop,” Tindal said.