But after a few years in property management, Roosevelt came back during the Great Recession as a meat manager at an Albertson’s grocery store. But the bug to have his own place, along with wife Krista’s desire to have her own business, got them to looking around again.
They found a location near Warner and Elliot roads too expensive.
“We just took our time looking, and all of a sudden we saw that they changed the Realtor,” Roosevelt said. “So we're like, ‘let's, let's see what it's running now.’ This is like three, four years later, and it actually was the right price. We jumped on it. The rest was history.”
This time, rather than buying someone else’s butchery, Roosevelt was able to craft the shop he wanted.
“I wanted high-end meats,” he said. “The other thing I wanted to do was to have a lot of hard-to-find stuff, like you can’t go to the grocery store and get. ... Basically have more variety and just really great customer service for customers so they keep coming in. And make it fair. I try not to charge too much, but obviously I still got to make a profit. But I'm not one that's going to sit there and gouge somebody.”
The meat comes from some smaller farms in Minnesota. Gilbert Butchery does a lot of processing in house, like making its own jerky and sausages, Roosevelt said.
He also has made enough connections in a career as a butcher—Roosevelt started at age 19 working at Basha’s—to find those hard-to-find meats. That can go from rarer beef cuts like dino ribs or hanger steak to more exotic meats, like elk, rabbit, bison, alligator. The shop also does an increasing amount of game processing for customers, Roosevelt said.
The last component, customer service, is more Krista’s area.
“We have a lot of regular customers, and it's just nice to be involved in the community more,” she said. “For me, customer service is just really big cause you want to stand out from the big grocery stores.”
A variety of services
Dan Roosevelt diversified his offerings to help assure his butchery’s success. The services include:
- Traditional meats
- Rarer cuts
- Exotic meats
- Seasonal homemade sausage
- Jerky and meat sticks
- Suckling and whole roasting pigs
- Side items, like twice-baked potatoes
- Special orders
- Game processing
- Knife sharpening
- Seasonings, sauces. dry rubs
- Natural pet food
Gilbert Butchery
965 S. Val Vista Drive, Ste. 101, Gilbert
480-626-5288
https://gilbertbutchery.com
Hours: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sun., closed Mon.
