John Ratliff has his eyes on the prize, the Charcuterie Masters prize that is.

It’s a good thing John Ratliff didn’t go on that bike trip. 

The New Mexico native saved up about $20,000 to either go on a cross-country bike trek, or open his own butcher shop in a Greenpoint loft he shared with a man upholstering couches. 

He chose the butcher shop.

“It was a silly scenario,” Ratliff said. 

But the loft gave Ratliff the space to practice the craft he first learned from Chef Hillary Sterling during his time at A Voce on Madison Avenue. Sterling taught him the basics of making charcuterie—recipes, how fermentation worked and how long to let the meat ferment, but Ratliff admits the bulk of his skill came from simple trial and error.

After three years, Ratliff was itching to open a retail shop. He admits that his business model—buying only whole hogs and making products from all kinds of cuts—was not lucrative and thus, made it a tough sell for investors. 

But Ratliff found a taker in the Industry City business complex in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. He signed the lease in December 2014 and in March 2015, Ends Meat opened its doors. 

It’s the latest step on Ratliff’s culinary tour that began at age 15, when he first began working in restaurants. At 18, he moved to Portland, Oregon to attend culinary school.

“I was kind of looking for a place to snowboard and go to school at the same time,” Ratliff said. 

A few years later, Ratliff moved to Chicago to work at Moto, owned by the late Homaro Cantu. On the weekends, he worked at Alinea.

After three years and subsequent stops at North Pond and Boka restaurants, Ratliff moved to New York.

In Chicago, Ratliff spent his free time working at one of only two restaurants in Chicago to hold three coveted Michelin stars. In New York, he made salami. 

He would make the salami in the basement of A Voce and bring them back to his apartment to age. At one point, Ratliff had five refrigerators in his Bushwick apartment, all lined with meat. 

The thing is, those refrigerator salamis were good. So good, in fact, friends began buying them for their restaurants.  Those friends told other friends and interest grew. 

“It was a slow process, but then it began to snowball.”

Ratliff had left A Voce and was working as a “nomadic cook” focusing on learning charcuterie when he decided to postpone the bike trip and spend his savings on what would become Ends Meat. 

Coppa, pancetta and finocchiona, a pork and fennel sausage, were among Ratliff’s first creations at Ends Meat. The salumeria now boasts about a dozen different varieties of charcuterie and a café serving sandwiches, salads and soups. 

The pork—all Berkshire and pasture-raised—comes from Roaming Acres farm in northern New Jersey. Ratliff said the hogs he buys are slaughtered at an older age than most market hogs, which allows for a better fat structure and stronger protein structure.

The denser fat is great for lardo and holds its shape in salami, giving the sausage its signature fat-speckled appearance. The older pigs also have larger whole muscles, which Ratliff uses to make lonza, guanciale and coppa, among others. 

The coppa may be among Ratliff’s offerings at the Charcuterie Masters festival. He is also considering his lonza, saucisson sec and ‘nduja, a spreadable sausage seasoned with four types of chiles, a southern Italian sausage that tastes straight from Ratliff’s home state. 

What’s next for Ends Meat? The shop was recently certified to begin producing beef products. Ratliff said he’s working on a beef soppressata, bresaola and salami. 

“[Making charcuterie] was something that just made sense,” Ratliff said. “I wanted to make it a sustainable business, not just a hobby.”