EYE on BUSINESS
…Featuring
neighborhood establishments
that help make Turtle Bay a special place to live and work
L. Simchick Prime Meats & Fresh Poultry
Leonard Simchick’s
butcher shop is a tiny, unpretentious-looking place – 400 square
feet in an 1850s corner building at First Avenue and 52nd Street.
But his meats and poultry are served at some very big, important
tables.
Ever the discreet
shopkeeper, Leonard won’t even hint at the names of the hosts and
hostesses who serve his products, but it can be assumed they include
lots of celebrities, heads of state and high-level diplomats.
“There are some very big private dinner parties in the area,”
Leonard says, lowering his voice as though he’s telling a
neighborhood secret. The private chefs and cooks for these parties
are among Leonard Simchick’s best customers.
But along with the
chefs, L. Simchick also has plenty of “do-it-yourself” neighborhood
customers. On a recent day when the Turtle Bay Newsletter stopped
by to chat with Leonard, a neighbor came in to buy two lamb chops,
cut two inches thick; a chef who was planning a party for his boss
came by to order veal for eight people, cut for osso bucco; and
another customer asked for advice on cooking a rib roast before
ordering one for her holiday dinner.
Leonard sells prime
meats, all cut to order (including many international cuts, a “must”
in such a diverse neighborhood as Turtle Bay, he says). His poultry
is all natural, raised on small farms. He also offers a wide
variety of game, delicacies and an array of prepared specialties.
While most of
Leonard’s customers are from Turtle Bay and surrounding
neighborhoods, his shop’s reputation is citywide. In the 2005 Zagat
Survey of Gourmet Marketplaces,
L. Simchick is tied for first place for quality and service among
all New York City meat markets. (The other is Lobel’s on the Upper
East Side.)
Leonard’s knowledge
of the business goes back a long way. When he was a boy growing up
in a small Pennsylvania town, he and his family lived above his
father’s butcher shop. As a child, he played in the store, and as a
teenager he worked there on weekends and during school vacations.
So when it came
time to choose his life’s work, Leonard wasn’t so sure he wanted to
become a butcher. “I’d spent too many hours of my boyhood in my
dad’s butcher shop,” he says. He went to college and got into the
import-export business. But by the time he was 32 years old, the
office environment seemed too confining and Leonard started to
re-think the butcher business.
To learn the trade
(re-learn, in Leonard’s case), he spent seven years working in
butcher stores in New York (his apprenticeship, he calls it), and
then he started looking for a shop of his own. That was in 1992. As
it turned out, just a year earlier, the historic A. Fitz & Sons
butcher shop, located in this small space at 944 First Avenue, had
finally closed after more than 130 years in business. Leonard leased
the empty storefront and opened L. Simchick Prime Meats & Poultry.
“It was just me, a delivery guy and no customers,” he says of those
first days in the business. But very quickly, customers who had
shopped at A. Fitz started coming in, and through word of mouth
alone (he’s never advertised), Leonard’s business grew rapidly.
He attributes much
of his success to his shop’s location. “The neighborhood’s affluence
and international nature are ideal for a specialty butcher shop like
mine,” he says.
But no doubt
quality and service are the real reason for his shop’s success. “We
have always been a small, old-fashioned butcher shop, and that’s the
way I want to keep it,” he says. “Too many butchers today
standardize their cuts of meat.” He points to his butcher block,
placed right in the center of the store. “When I cut meat for my
customers, I like to think that I’m bringing my ‘block’ right into
their kitchen,” he says. “I want to do it their way.”
With a philosophy
like that, it’s easy to see how L. Simchick has earned its fine
reputation.
Store hours:
Mon.-Fri., 8 a.m.-7 p.m.
Sat., 9 a.m.-6
p.m.
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The
Turtle Bay Association is a nonprofit (501c3) community
organization.
224 East 47th Street, New York City 10017
(212) 751-5465
Fax (212) 751-4941
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