The Meating Place first opened in 1974 and was in business until 1998.  It re-opened in 2011 as a small custom meat shop and within a few years expanded into a 20,000 sq. ft. store offering smoking, curing and sausage making along with a separate cafe.  Now with their own herd and ability to process other small rancher’s meat, they are working to reduce the carbon footprint of meat packing and slaughterhouse processes.  Their beef goes “straight from our farm to the Meating Place where it’s cut and wrapped for customers without ever hitting a piece of plastic.”   The huge meat market was in a separate building just down a small hill from the good-sized café.  It offered plenty of indoor and outdoor dining spots and also did a healthy take-out business.  It takes a while to get your order so many have learned to call ahead or order online.  Music was in the background and a huge mural filled one wall.  The kitchen was next to the long order counter and mostly walled off from view.  The smells were fantastic as you entered and Frankie enjoyed all the pig decorations.   They are open Tues through Sunday for breakfast and lunch from 9 to 3.   A special sandwich is offered some days and many are available in a half size.  The sandwiches and burgers come with a bag of chips and a pickle spear.  If I lived nearby I’m sure I’d shop at their market because I admire what they’re doing.  Not so sure about their sandwiches but it’d be worth it to try a burger and if you do please let me know how it was.

Set-Up

Food

The Cowboy Club was made with roast beef, ham, bacon, smoked cheddar, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, and peppercorn aioli on a parmesan onion bun.  It was not available as a half.  It was a huge sandwich with the cheddar well melted but the meats were all pretty dry.   It was my husband’s but when I tasted a bite I tasted little flavor.  It didn’t work for him or me.

The Reuben contained pastrami, Swiss, thousand island, and sauerkraut on sliced rye and I ordered a half.  It was a pretty conventional Reuben but again the meat was way too dry and tasteless.  I think both sandwiches suffered from too much time griddle time for the meats.  It also suffered another of my pet peeves – unbalance.  It really needed to be assembled with more care so you could have all the ingredients in the main part of the sandwich. The bagged chips were made with a thicker cut and okay but the pickle spear was nicely flavored and crisp.

We tried a side order of gouda mac salad that contained bacon, ham black olive, roasted red bell pepper, onion and macaroni.  It came in several sizes and I got the smallest, a 4 oz.  It was very thick and pretty orange-colored.  There were a lot of cubes of meat in there and they had flavor but the olives were pretty bland.  It was fine but I wouldn’t get it again.