Best of the Beach 2022: Meat Market (Independent), Meat Market (chain)
Meat Market (Independent)
Manhattan Meats
Jacob Walsh started working as a cleaner at Manhattan Meats when he was in high school. Right after graduation, his boss, longtime owner Dean Trimble, asked him if he wanted to work full time. “As long as I don’t clean,” Walsh said. “No,” Trimble replied. “I’m going to teach you how to cut meat from here on.” Fifteen years later, Walsh co-owns Manhattan Meats with Brian Trimble, Dean’s son, and both he and the market’s legendarily loyal clientele couldn’t be happier about it. “It’s a lot of fun coming to work every day,” Walsh said. “It’s really the customers. The customers are the best here.” He says 80 percent of the market’s business is from regular customers, many of whom come in several times a week, and it’s not hard to understand why: Manhattan Meats is known for the unwaveringly high quality of its product. The key, says Walsh, is freshness; fresh meat is delivered four times a week, fresh fish six times a week. The crew makes sausage in-house, using unusually good cuts of meat, and is famous for its deftness with seasoning. The chicken fiesta sausage, in particular, is a masterpiece. And that is the other key to Manhattan Meats — the crew, with very low employee turnover, are so good at what they do that they are local celebrities among loyal customers. “The motto here,” Walsh said, “is we go above and beyond.”
Manhattan Meats
1111 Manhattan Ave.
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
manhattanbeachmarket.com
Runner-up
La Vendita Meat Market
22035 S. Main St.
Carson
(310) 830-7099
lavenadita.com
Meat Market (chain)
Bristol Farms
Bristol Farms does not stint. A discussion about beef on the company’s food blog examines the USDA grading system. It notes that the lowest grade in supermarkets is known as USDA Select and while it lacks marbling it works for recipes that call for added spices or moisture, such as soups. “You won’t find USDA Select at Bristol Farms,” the blog flatly states. That’s because Bristol Farms only offers the highest quality beef — even at the highest grade, USDA Prime, Bristol Farms meat buyers only target the highest 2 percent among that category. They are also stringent in not buying any beef that has ever had any hormones or antibiotics, despite the fact that beef can still be legally marketed as hormone and antibiotic-free so long as the animal has not been weaned from such additives. “That’s not how we do things here: If an animal needs antibiotics, our farmers nurse it back to health and send it to a different processor,” Bristol Farms says. Also available are high-end aged beef, the famous Wagyu Japanese beef, lamb, veal, natural pork, in-store made sausages (check out the pork Irish cabbage sausage), and free-range air-chilled chicken. The Manhattan Beach Bristol Farms store, like all the stores in the chain, also prioritizes its butchers being available to offer guidance to customers in meat selection, preparation, and cooking techniques.
Meat Market (chain)
Bristol Farms
Corporate Office
915 E. 230th St.
Carson
bristolfarms.com
Runner-up
Whole Foods Market
405 N. Pacific Coast Hwy.
Redondo Beach
(310) 376-6931
wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/redondobeach