MEET New Member GLENN BEARD, Master Butcher

OWNER OF

Glenn and Dale Beard of Georgia, The husband and wife team operate The Meat Mart butcher shop at Orange Beach, Al. The Beard’s have a meat shop in Georgia is now run by their daughter. The Orange Beach shop opened for business on Memorial weekend after hard work and much anticipation.

Customers are finding more than just meat at the shop, although the Beards offer prime beef cuts and Springer Mountain Farms chicken – 100% natural chicken that is hormone and antibiotic free.

"We’ve got a little something for everybody,” Glenn said. “We have five flavors of twice-baked potatoes. We make all our salads from scratch. Those potatoes are pretty popular.”

Everything in the store is made fresh by the Beards. Dale is in charge of homemade seafood, chicken and potato salads. She also makes fresh pimento cheese and smoked tuna dip.

“My chicken salad is made with all-natural free-range chicken,” Dale says. “It’s a Paula Deen recipe that I tweaked. The pimento cheese is also Paula Deen’s, with my tweaks. The potato salad is my mom’s.”

Dale also handcrafts the store’s crab cakes and portabella mushroom caps filled with crab cake stuffing. Other prepared and ready to cook items include kabobs and beef pinwheels – a blend of tender beef, fresh spinach leaves and Provolone cheese, rolled and sliced. You can also pick up seasonal local produce to complete your meal.

 Glenn is in charge of making the mind boggling variety of sausages for sale in the store. Anything from sun-dried tomato basil to savory chicken to the house flavored sausages. Some of the 20 or so sausages even come with seafood in them - like shrimp and crawfish boudin.

“We do make everything in here,” Glenn said. “We hand-cut everything. If you want to just buy one piece of sausage, you can. You don’t have to buy the whole pack. Whatever you want.”

“As far as our line of meats, we have Certified Angus beef,” Glenn said. “You have to be licensed to carry that. This is prime beef. I like to keep some out here so people can see it. Prime rib eyes.”

“The prime is something you really only get in high-end restaurants,” Dale said. “You normally don’t see it out where you can buy it and take it home and cook it.”

 A tradition carried over from the Beards' Georgia shop is the “Caveman Cut.”

“Anytime we put out a cut of meat bigger than a pound, like a big ol’ rib eye or something, we had a customer in Georgia call that the ‘Caveman Cut,’” Glenn said. “So we now have a sticker we put on anything over a pound.”

The Meat Mart also offers a variety of bundle packages from $25 to $299 and all include a good sample of what the shop offers.

Business has been picking up through the summer as customers discover the store and the variety of items available. There is already a steady flow of “regulars.” The shop encourages locals to give the place a try with a local’s card.

“We started it two weeks ago,” Glenn said. “It’s a 10-percent discount deal. This is a good time to start this because that’s who is here now, locals.”

For locals and visitors alike, a stop at The Meat Mart will not disappoint. It is a one-of-a-kind shop in Orange Beach that you do not want to miss. (The about is part of a story in The Orange Beach Community Website http://www.orangebeach.ws/)

 Glenn does it all, From Steaks to Sausage

Learn more about The Meat Mart at www.MeatMartOrangeBeach.com

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