Good Neighbor Podcast: North Shore
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of North Shore
Good Neighbor Podcast: North Shore
EP #28 - First City Meats, Josh Clark - A Butcher's Journey Toward Transparency
Join us as we introduce Josh Clark, the inspiring owner of First City Meats in Lynn, Massachusetts, who not only revolutionizes the art of butchery but also champions local agriculture. Through our conversation, uncover how Josh's passion for cooking and his commitment to sourcing meat from local New England farms have shaped a business rooted in quality and transparency. We promise you'll gain a deeper understanding of the complexities behind meat labeling terms like "grass-fed" and "organic" and appreciate the creativity and challenges involved in traditional whole animal butchery.
Josh's story is not just about meat; it's a testament to balancing entrepreneurship with family life amid significant changes. With three kids, a new home, and a career shift all occurring in rapid succession, Josh shares how these experiences have fortified his marriage and influenced his business philosophy. Explore how First City Meats is more than a business—it's a personal mission to connect the community to their food's origins. Discover how you can meet Josh and embrace this unique journey by visiting the shop or checking out their website for more insights into their offerings.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Yvonne Godfrey.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast, where we shine a spotlight on local business. Today, we have the pleasure to have Josh Clark in our studio with us and we are excited to learn about First City Meats. I'm hearing some good things about it, so, Josh, welcome. How are you doing today?
Speaker 3:I'm doing very well. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Wonderful, wonderful, Josh, we're thrilled to have you here and we're excited to learn more about your business. Can you please tell our listeners about your company?
Speaker 3:So First City Meats is a retail butcher shop. That's the shortest version. The real story, though, is we are a whole animal butcher. I buy entire animals from local farms and I cut everything in the store, so it really is kind of a look back to the more traditional style of meat marketing butcher shop more traditional style of meat market and butcher shop.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's it in a nutshell.
Speaker 3:Okay, where do you buy the animals from? So I only buy from farmers that I know. I have visited every farm personally. I have been to every plant that processes. That is my number one promise to people. I am the shortest path between your food and your farm. You know it's four stops if you include me in the farm, between you and you and your, you and your meat. And so that is my number one promise. I only buy from people I know, and right now I'm getting meat from Vermont, maine and New Hampshire, just kind of based on what season we're in and who's harvesting what when, but it's all New England farms.
Speaker 2:Okay, thank you for that. And how did you get into this business so?
Speaker 3:there's no straight lines in nature, right? So I had an entire career in hotels and restaurants as a chef. I had another entire career in retail food service and I have always been and enjoyed the meat cutting aspect of both of those things. So I live in Lynn, the same town where my business is, and I wanted to start a business that was going to benefit my community. So it's really all those things my career, history, my interests and the needs of the community all kind of converging at a point.
Speaker 2:Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. How long have you been in business?
Speaker 3:So the store is coming up on our two-year anniversary in the first week of December. So we are fast approaching two years since we've been open.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. So, josh, what are some myths or misconceptions in your industry?
Speaker 3:Okay, so there's a lot of quote unquote experts about meat and about farming and there's a lot of sort of mud in the water as far as the details, and it's very easy for people to get overwhelmed by catchphrases like grass fed or free range or all natural and tough to decode what those things are, code what those things are.
Speaker 3:So the misconceptions are really just tied up in a glut of information, which is why I prioritize understanding farming and having been to these farmers and it's my goal to make all of that simpler and why I prioritize local meat, because there are so many decisions that a farmer has to make on the ground that are never going to fit on a label, they're not going to be as neat as a% grass fed, just as an example, and so the benefits of those sort of shortened labels like organic are really where the misconceptions are and, truthfully, there's a lot of people that have just lost touch with where their meat comes from.
Speaker 3:These are animals. They do have an anatomy. We are limited by that. It's easy to kind of forget that when you see everything in big piles at a big box store, you know a cow has two tenderloins that have two briskets and it's kind of interesting to people kind of realize that we're not extruding things out of a machine. We are cutting them, we are manufacturing them. We are limited by the animal's anatomy and we've got to get creative to find ways to sell everything.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, beautiful. So outside of work, josh, what do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:I am a workaholic. I work a lot. I love food. I am blessed to be in a business that really is my passion and what I think is the most fun I love cutting.
Speaker 2:I love cooking I love talking about food.
Speaker 3:I have five days a what I think is the most fun. I love cutting, I love cooking, I love talking about food. I have five days a week. I get to talk about food with my guests, but I have three kids so that takes up the rest of my time. They're all young and so my activities are their activities. So we have a lot of just time walking around and going to the park and playing outside.
Speaker 3:But yeah, really, I'm very fortunate. I'm very fortunate. I'm not trying to be trying to dodge it, Like I don't. I am living my hobby every day and my interests and I've aligned it with with my job and my store.
Speaker 2:So it's all. It's all on purpose. That sounds really, really good when you're doing what you love. It doesn't even seem like work, Mm-hmm, Just seem like enjoyment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2:So changing gears. Josh, can you describe one hardship or one of life's challenge that you rose above and can now say that you're stronger and better because of it?
Speaker 3:So, without getting into too many personal details, I will share that. My wife and I we went from finding out my wife was pregnant with our first child to having three children in 13 months. So and that's we had. My wife gave birth and we adopted two more kids in pretty rapid succession. In that same 13 months we bought a house and we both changed jobs pretty rapid succession. In that same 13 months we bought a house and we both changed jobs.
Speaker 3:So just being through a year with that many stressors, that much change with my wife, really opened my eyes to like how much more we really could accomplish together and as individuals. So that really kind of opened my eyes to my own capabilities and just being able to navigate. I say the most stressful things that you can do are moving, starting a family and changing jobs. And my wife did all and I did all of that in spades in a very condensed amount of time and it was challenging. There's no like sort of big challenge moment in there, but the collective sort of change that we went through in that space, basically a year, really opened up my eyes to like what else we could do.
Speaker 3:We were we, we came through that in good, in good standing, and we're stronger together in our marriage and our family and we really tried to like leverage that experience to just push even farther and do more, and that's how we got the business kind of started.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Speaker 3:Josh, please tell our listeners one thing they should remember about First City Meats Like I said before, we are the shortest path to local agriculture, especially when it comes to meat. There is no locally, there is no shorter way to knowing and understanding where your meat comes from, and I think that is the most valuable piece. It's easy to compare just prices, it is easy to just look at. You know it all does kind of look the same and you can value the origin of it however you'd like. But my commitment is to that keeping it local and knowing exactly who.
Speaker 3:I buy from. You know I'll never ask my guests to take my word for it if all I've done is taken someone else's and we're really committed to that. And it, if all I've done is taken someone else's, um, and we're really committed to that. And you know I am limited by the anatomy. I know a whole pig's got two rats and that's it and um, but I can still navigate the rest of that animal to get you the experience you want, even if we've got to modify your recipe a little bit okay, so how can our listeners learn more about?
Speaker 3:first city meets josh the best way is to come in the store. Um, I've had 698 washington street inland. I'm open five days a week, wednesday to sunday. Come talk to me. I'm the owner of the butcher. I'm the only one here, um, if you can't do that or you want to get a head start, my website is firstcitymeetscom. That has everything. It has links to the farms, it has my story how I got here, it has a really detailed breakdown of all the cuts that I could produce, and it's a really useful resource in that way. So, firstcitymeetscom, but nothing's better than just coming to the store and talking.
Speaker 2:Do you also have an email address?
Speaker 3:Yeah, josh, at firstcitymeetscom Okay.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Josh. We really appreciate you being on the show with us today and we enjoyed learning a lot more about First City Meets than we knew before. So thank you for this opportunity to educate or inform our listeners.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate you reaching out and we're able to do this.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we wish you all the best going forward in your business.
Speaker 3:All right, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPNorthshorecom. That's GNPNorthshorecom, or call 857-703-9406.