The new butcher shop planned for South Avenue in New Canaan is on track for a Dec. 10 opening, officials said.
Michael Hutten, a butcher of 30 years experience, will be running South Avenue Butcher when it opens at 15 South Ave. in New Canaan—he’s targeting a Dec. 10 opening date. Credit: Michael Dinan
South Avenue Butcher (here on Facebook) will offer homemade sausage and prime cut meats, according to Michael Hutten.
A Holland-born butcher of 30 years experience, Hutten said the shop will offer a rotation of sausages that includes bratwurst, weisswurst and bockwurst as well as traditional Italian and Irish sausages.
“We can get you anything you like,” Hutten said on a recent afternoon outside the new shop at 17 South Ave. “We can get you game meats, venison, all that. And we have to learn—whatever the people want, we will get.”
In the planning stages since at least August, South Avenue Butcher has seen the former Specs space— between Station Eats and the Colonial Barber Shop—undergo some $15,000 of interior and exterior renovations. The work has included electrical upgrades and lighting, and pushing out the front entrance by four feet so it’s flush with those on either side. At the request of New Canaan Planning & Zoning officials, a mullion also has been removed so that the door to the new shop sits centered on the commercial storefront.
Inside, South Avenue Butcher will provide over-the-counter service to customers, offering a wide and changing menu of meats as well as some deli items, Hutten said.
A resident of the United States for 20 years as of last month, he worked most recently in Darien and Stamford, and though he’s owned his own business before—a deli and catering business—this is Hutten’s first butcher shop, he said.
“I’m excited and also nervous,” he told NewCanaanite.com. “We want to get this open and start to serve the neighborhood.”
Tucker Murphy, executive director of the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce, said the organization has been working with South Avenue Butcher “for a while to find the right space.”
“They are committed to having one of the best selections of meats in the area,” Murphy said.
Part of the reason for that is New Canaanites have shown themselves to have sophisticated and varied tastes, Hutten said.
The town’s population includes many fellow Europeans, he said, and passersby have had questions about types of meat and whether it’s grass-fed, dry-aged or prime.
“I think it’s a good market,” Htten said of New Canaan. “There is nothing else around in four, five miles.”
A notice posted to South Avenue Butcher’s Facebook page says the shop will serve pasture-fed, free range and hormone-free meat and poultry.
“We know our customers are concerned about the quality of the food they feed their family,” the post says. “We will focus on providing fresh meat and poultry from the best local suppliers. Although we sell some products from farther afield, our strong relationships with our suppliers ensure that you get the highest quality meat and poultry available at the most reasonable prices.”
The new butcher shop fills out a field of options for locals that includes the butcher at Walter Stewart’s Market, which does a brisk business at holiday time, while the two chain grocers in town also have meat departments and Pine Street Concessions has been eyeing a butcher/small market as one of its vendor tenants.