Brady Hanlen was just 8-years-old when he started working with his grandfather, Leo, and his dad, Dennis, at the family meat market. He wielded the fly swatter. “Grandpa paid me a penny a fly,” he says. “I worked my way up to dishwasher in a few years. When I was in high school, I worked behind the counter, which was hard at first because I was a shy kid. The shyness didn’t last long.”
Hanlen’s Fine Meats wasn’t unique at the time. Butcher shops proliferated throughout the city and county. “When my dad moved the business to Kirkwood in 1972 there were eight butcher shops in Kirkwood alone,” says Hanlen. “Today, we are the only one remaining.”
Unlike the new kids who opened boutique butcher shops in trendy neighborhoods in the last five years, three generations of Hanlens have delivered quality meats and poultry, butchered to order, hand-in-glove with top-drawer service.
“The main thing when you work with a regular butcher is you know you will get a consistent product prepared the same way each time,” Hanlen says. “Regular customers can call ahead for custom orders for special dinners. We work with folks to meet their needs.
“For example, we process field dressed deer for hunters. We also participate in Share the Harvest. Hunters who donate the entire deer if they don’t plan to eat it are not charged for processing the meat for distribution to food pantries.”
Hanlen’s also makes deer jerky and venison bacon.
Hanlen’s cuts to order, sometimes learning from the people who walk through the door. “A man from Brazil came into the shop. He wanted a pichana cut, which is similar but not exactly a tri-tip, with a fat cap. It took us about six weeks to figure it out. Today, we cut 80 to 100 pounds of pichanas for our Brazilian customers. They’ll put them on a rotisserie, encrusted with sea salt, with the fat on the outside – delicious.”
Other special services include catering smoked and barbecued meats complete with sides and sauces for private parties. Hanlen specializes in pig roasts like the one he recently organized for a South City homeowner who throws an annual party for her birthday.
“We’ve done this party for the past twelve years,” says Hanlen. “You see some of the same people, but this party also draws in new people. Like the couple from the Philippines who took home the roasted pig skin to make a special Filipino soup. “They were thrilled to get it,” Hanlen says.
Look for fresh sausages at the long-standing butcher shop including house-made all-beef franks, bratwurst, Andouille, Polish, salsiccia and Texas red, a spicy sausage developed with a customer who graduated from Texas A & M University. “He missed his reds,” Hanlen says.
The shop also offers Tuscan, a sausage with basil, garlic, wine, fresh mozzarella developed for Eleven-Eleven Mississippi and a St. Patrick's Day-only corned beef and potatoes sausages. “We use natural casings on most of our sausages except for breakfast links, which work better with synthetic casings,” he says.
Hanlen’s sometimes makes old family sausage recipes. “One year we made about 30 hand-tied, two-pound chubbs of a Krakow sausage for a family reunion; enough for each family to get a taste,” Hanlen says. “There was a time when every family had a favorite sausage recipe,” he says. “We might suggest improvements, but generally we make it as they remember it.”
Other perks at Hanlen’s include marinating meats in their famous 14-spice marinade and rub. “We do that at no-charge,” Hanlen says.
Luckily for busy customers, Hanlen’s market carries specialty treats, selected bottles of wine, sauces, snacks and some sides made in-house, including Brady Hanlen’s favorite Texas Rye Potatoes. “I made this out of LBJ’s cookbook,” Hanlen says. “These are steak-cut bakers with caraway.”
Hanlen's Fine Meat & Catering
11037 Manchester
Kirkwood
314-966-8606
Tue - Sat: 8 a.m. - 6 p.m.
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