Owners of Buster's Liquors & Wines to partner on butcher shop next door

By Susan Ellis – Projects Editor, Memphis Business Journal

Mar 6, 2023 Updated Mar 7, 2023, 9:23am CST

Grinder Taber & Grinder, Inc. is the General Contractor for this project.

Josh and Morgan Hammond, the owners of Buster's Liquors & Wines, have teamed up with Brad McCarley for a new butcher shop to go in the Subway space next to the liquor store. Buster’s Butcher is set to open this summer.

"This idea has been in our head for a while to have a gourmet food shop next door," Josh Hammond said.

Hammond said the city doesn't have a ton of independent butcher shops, and so they focused in on this concept after they were told by their landlord, LPI Memphis, that the Subway space at 199 S. Highland St. was coming available.

McCarley has a long resume when it comes to meat in Memphis. He's worked at Porcellino’s and Curb Market and owned City Block Salumeria in Puck Food Hall. He currently manages Salt | Soy restaurant on Broad Avenue.

Hammond said he reached out to chef Ryan Trimm for advice. Trimm pointed him to McCarley.

McCarley said he plans on staying at Salt | Soy for now. He defined Buster's Butcher as a "mercantile butcher concept."

"We had a call for an hour to discuss the merits of this project and it was clear he was our guy," Hammond said of McCarley. "With his experience and background in the butcher business, we knew he would be ideal."

The Subway space is 2,280 square feet. Hammond said that while the storefront of the shop was small, the actual site is about twice as big. They plan on utilizing all the space. They are adding windows to the side of the building and are adding a kitchen with a vent-a-hood as well as multiple compressors to keep down the buzzing noise.

"We are going to have a very large selection of take-away foods. We'll have some pastas and sauces, things like that," said McCarley, who will be the chef.

They will not, however, be serving sandwiches.

"We don't want this to turn into another Subway, so to speak," Hammond said. "But, we're offering deli meats and a number of things that can help you make a sandwich."

The shop will also offer charcuterie boards, with items from France and Italy. They will also have fresh sausages, house-cured and smoked meats, as well as a dry-aged program for the beef.

Buster's Liquors & Wines and Buster's Butcher will be two separate shops. Hammond pictures customers coming from the butcher shop with their purchases looking for the perfect beverage to pair it with.

Hammond said he and McCarley have been touring several area cattle farms. He's learned about cuts of meat and how the animals are raised and processed.

Hammond said he knows retail, but he's leaning on McCarley for his expertise as well as local providers such as Homeplace Pastures and Galler Foods.

"We want to do more of the local thing, because consumers, especially these days, want to know where their meat's coming from," he said. "They want to know where [and] how it's been raised."