el Salchichero

If you live in Santa Cruz, have you been to el Salchichero, “Your Community Butcher” yet? We’ve been meaning to go since it opened, and finally made it over there yesterday and it pretty much felt like I walked into paleo heaven. All their meat is from pasture raised animals from local ranches and all other ingredients are also from local farms and farmers markets. Chris LaVeque’s (the butcher) specialty seems to be sausages and they are seriously the best sausages I’ve EVER had. He does all of his smoking and curing on site and never uses any fillers or binders. You can definitely taste the quality in the food he creates.

I loved their specials yesterday: Duck Fat, Bacon Grease, and Lard were a few that I can remember.

Although, the location is very cool and modern – in an industrial looking building, the experience of shopping here made me feel like I went back in time. I thought, is this what life used to be like, prior to the days of feedlots, when butchery was treated as a craft and you didn’t have to worry about where your meat came from? It made me want to move to the South of France, sip wine and frequent little cheese shops and butchers. Seems so charming.

I fell in love with their slogan and had to buy a sticker:

We had an amazing Sunday morning breakfast today of eggs and el Salchichero bacon. It was so much meatier and heartier than even high quality store bought bacon. I can’t say I’ve ever had bacon like it before.

Although, it’s quite pricey, we plan to stop in here whenever possible, and splurge on some really good meat and support a great local business. I really hope that these guys stick around for decades to come. If you don’t live in Santa Cruz, but if you ever head down to spend a day at the beach, this is a great spot to stop and grab some sausages to BBQ.