Click here to get driving directions to Porterhouse Meat Market located just south of Havana, Florida.

Porterhouse Meat Market

My phone buzzed while I was still in bed. I rolled over to grab it. A warm and energetic voice came through the speaker of my phone.

“How are you doing man?”

Trying to rattle my brain out of the fog and speaking carefully to keep the night’s phlegm from making my voice break I answered.

“Good. How’s it going for you?”

I try to discretely clear my throat and rub the crusties out of my eyes from allergies and my fatigue-induced coma from the night before.

The caller is Fawzi, my local butcher and owner of Porterhouse Meat Market in Havana, Florida. Someone I have really enjoyed getting to know since moving here. When we first started going to Porterhouse, we bought his pork, chicken, and beef. Now that TnF Farms has created some momentum with our American Guinea hogs and chickens, I buy just beef and grocery items from him.

“I have some things for you to pick up. It’s Friday, I’m cutting meat!” Fawzi paused.

“Are you still sleeping, Tim?”

“No. I uh, clearly overslept.”

With fall here in Florida, we’re trying to take advantage of every moment of dry, daylight working on projects outside. After the sun goes down, we’ve been working sometimes until 2 in the morning catching up on office work and inside projects. I hear my wife groan and look over to see her arm come out from under the covers. Her phone displays that it was after 9. 9 AM? Did we sleep that late?

“Best butcher ever. It’s time to come get some meat” I joke.

“I’m going to sip some coffee and I’ll be down in a little bit.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then!”

The small-town business experience

Faith and I proceeded to get going on our morning chores then with some cups of coffee drank, we were on our way to Porterhouse. Faith needed to satisfy her sweet tooth and was telling me which candy she was planning to throw in on our purchase.

Walking into a small-town business like Porterhouse is always an experience. The door’s entrance bell dings when we walk in. A moment later, Fawzi stepped out from the back and with a sincere smile greeted us like friends. You just don’t get that in some random grocery store or even the specialty stores in bigger cities. We catch up from the last visit and make small talk for a while. Eventually, I made my way to the back of the store to check out his fresh cuts.

Two important things to know about shopping at Porterhouse.

• Porterhouse doesn’t sell hydrated or “plumped” meat like a lot of the big grocery store chains. Simply stated – there isn’t extra water being introduced to the raw meat to bring the weight up. Sometimes with the extra water weight, the big, cheaper grocery stores will run with really low prices but all that water comes back out as steam when you cook the meat. An easy test you can do yourself is to compare the moisture pad under the cut of meat. Porterhouse’s are rarely soggy and never drip.
• The meat schedule. When I was first stopping in, a lot of times, it was early to midweek. If I was looking for a special cut like a tomahawk steak, sometimes they would be sold out. I finally had to ask why sometimes fresh cuts in the cooler are overflowing. Then I got my answer.

The best meat selection is Friday into the weekends.

Don’t get me wrong, all week there are plenty of fresh cuts to buy. Thursday is typically when the meat shows up. Friday he and his butchers are cutting and packaging meat. The weekend is when everyone is coming in to grill and when Porterhouse Meat Market is filling lots of large orders for customers and events.

Now that I know, I make sure to stop in on Fridays or Saturdays. Fawzi asked us what kind of beef we were looking for. I tell him I’m always down for a ribeye and Faith really likes his filets. As I reach for one of the steaks, Fawzi stops me mid-reach.

“No, you don’t want that one. This is the one I want you to have. This one is the best.” Fawzi then turns to Faith and points to a package of filets.

“These are USDA choice. I’ll wrap this filet in bacon for you. It won’t be your bacon. Is that ok?”

We chuckle at Fawzi’s humor about our American Guinea hog bacon and proceed to pick up some other odds and ends for our meal and take note of some of the other grocery items for future meal planning. Fawzi comes out from the back with Faith’s filet wrapped in bacon and some asparagus bundled up under the stretch wrap. Much like a good barber or bartender with a regular walking in from a hard day, they just know exactly what you want and how you like it!

Every customer is number 1 at Porterhouse

A lot of our visits get lengthy. We chat as he takes phone calls as a steady stream of customers comes through. He knows all of them by name. Many get a greeting that is unique to them and they respond in kind as they walk in through the door. Fawzi and his other customers pick up on their rolling conversations. Some of the regulars have small children. I watch him give them candy with a smile. It’s brilliant. His customer’s kids look forward to stopping in like I do.

Many of his regulars also enjoy the personalized service. As we chat, Fawzi occasionally excuses himself to work with those customers. Their conversation often carries up to the register and some that aren’t in a hurry linger for some pleasantries. Just about everyone seems to leave with their mood a little elevated. Why wouldn’t they? When was the last time a store owner got to know you by name, remembered what you talked about then could just pick up the conversation?

He and a new customer get chatting on a tangent. As they wrap up, he asks her, her name. And like that, from now on, he will greet her by name whenever she stops in. Fawzi did the same thing with us on our second visit all that time ago.