Greg Madouras and Josh Johnson want to be your friendly neighborhood butchers. The Broadway Butcher Shop opens today at 10 a.m. and will sell high-quality beef, pork, seafood, and other items. Madouras says they want to get to know their customers by name. The shop is next to Gomer’s on Broadway near 39th Street.
Sam the butcher in the 1970s Brady Bunch television show has faded into deep obscurity, just like neighborhood butcher shops in general.
But today Greg Madouras opens one at the at 3828 Broadway, next door to the Gomer’s liquor store, and he wants people to think of it like Sam’s shop.
“We’re trying to make it homey,” he said Tuesday, while workers installed the late arriving countertop.
“I don’t want just a customer,” he said. “I want a relationship with that customer.”
For one thing, he is ready to give advice like recipes for exotic protein sources not found at most supermarkets.
By 10 a.m. opening time today, he expected to have fresh fish from the Honolulu Seafood Company, caught live by line Monday and shipped immediately.
There will be number one Ahi tuna, Tombo tuna, blue prawns and Ora King salmon.
They also will sell beef fed for 360 days on grain, fine marbled Duroc pork and sometimes prime beef like the Kobe and Waygu breeds, he said.
There will also be lamb and veal and fresh poultry and more exotic fare when available, things like pheasant, quail, emu, elk and buffalo.
Madouras said he leases the building from the adjacent Gomer’s in Midtown and operates in partnership with its owner, Jim Probst.
The two places mesh for area people on their way home from work, he said. “Stop here and grab a couple nice steaks, stop over there and get a bottle of wine.”
Madouras said his grandfather was a butcher and he has worked at that trade since he was 18 years old in Stanley, Kansas. He lives in Overland Park now but said he chose to locate the butcher shop in Midtown because the area is coming on strong. “There are more people coming this direction,” he said.
His helper is butcher Josh Johnson, and a butcher will be on hand for all the hours the store is open, Madouras said, which is 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.
The store will also sell some items like upscale cooking knives and eventually high quality smokers and related items, he said.
One thing, though, don’t expect meat wrapped in brown butcher paper like Sam and real old-time butchers used.
Madouras said he could not find it anymore. His wrapping will be white butcher paper with a wax coating on one side, a nod to progress in an old profession.
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