We went to Port Charlotte the other day to visit a butcher shop. It was a pleasant 2 1/2 hour drive. "WHY????" most would ask, would we drive all that distance for a butcher shop? Well, first off, we love a road trip. Throw a cooler in the back of the truck, pack some beach towels, bathing suits (just in case), chairs, some beverages and we are off! We've driven to Gainesville just for dinner via Cedar Key; we've gone to Sarasota for Peruvian food; East Tampa for barbeque. We always have fun, discover some great new places and see a little bit of Florida we've never seen before.
The other reason we went is because there are no butchers around where we live. There are plenty of meat markets, but we are looking for an actual butcher shop where they make their own sausage and smoke their own bacon and have fresh cut meat. So, on to Port Charlotte to Kallis German Butcher Shop.
Just North of the intersection of Midway Blvd and US 41, Kallis sits in a small building in a sea of strip malls. The first thing we noticed upon entering was how CLEAN the place was. Yay, we like clean. There were shelves of German specialty foods like mustards and pickles and sauerkrauts and sauces. There was also quite a large selection of all kinds of candy which makes me think that mayhaps Herr Kallis has a sweet tooth.
The meat cases are clean as a whistle and full of fresh beef and pork, deli meats and cheeses and smoked and fresh sausages of all kinds. We picked a hunk of sirloin steak $4.99 lb, 10lbs of their 90/10 hamburger (a beautiful lean grind and a bargain at $2.49 lb). We also chose some fresh Italian sausage and bratwurst at $3.29 lb and the biggest country style ribs I've ever seen for $1.99 lb. Their bacon and some liverwurst from the deli case, some spatezele and dill pickles rounded out our order. Our decadent splurge was a big vacuum sealed bag of their own jerky. They warn that it spoils quickly, but we knew that as much as we love jerky, it was no danger of lasting long enough to spoil.
We can't remember the name of the lady that helped us, but she was great. She was very friendly and seemed like she was happy to get to know us while we browsed the shop and placed our order. She was sure to tell us about the chicken they have in the back and the specialty items they have around the holidays. She told us about her love of hunting and fishing and the outdoors and even offered to take us fishing the next time we came down for a visit. She passed on the name of a butcher in Arcadia that sells whole hogs and sides of beef. Sounds like a great place for a road trip.
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