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Last-Minute Shoppers Crowd Tiny Meat Market ; Customers Praise Shop's Custom Cuts

Posted on: Thursday, 24 November 2005, 09:00 CST

By MICHAEL DAVIS Journal Staff Writer

For 30 years, Nelson's Meats has been a South Valley fixture catering to people from all over the state.

Some shoppers call going to Nelson's a family tradition. Others say it has the best steaks in Albuquerque.

Business was booming as the little market braved a storm of customers clamoring for last-minute meat purchases on Thanksgiving eve.

The store, which sits in the middle of a strip mall on Old Coors Road just north of Bridge, is known for its locally grown meat, which is custom cut to order.

"I don't want any more business," joked Larry Nelson, the owner of the butcher shop and strip mall. "I'm kidding, we've been very busy leading up to the holidays. We've sold a lot of turkeys, hams and prime rib. We tend to sell a lot of food native to New Mexico, but it certainly doesn't end there."

On Wednesday afternoon, dozens of people crowded the shop picking up the fixings for Thanksgiving dinner or, in the case of Jane Chavez, items for a baby shower.

"My family has lived here since 1964 and since then we've shopped at Nelson's," she said. "It's a family tradition. You can get everything here. They do custom meat and there's also a grocery and a bakery. Besides, Nel- son's has the best chile anywhere. I don't know where he gets it, but it's good."

Nelson said he gets his chile from Hatch and sun-dries it himself.

"People are making a lot of chile this year," he said. "Not so much posole, that's really more of a Christmas thing. The advantage to owning this strip mall is that we are more than just a butcher shop. People can pick up everything they need here."

Nelson and his son, Ben, own the grocery next to the butcher shop and lease space to a bakery attached to the grocery store.

"If people get tired of turkey, they can always come over and grab a sub or a pizza," he said, walking past the Pudge Brothers Pizza that shares the strip mall.

Meanwhile, behind the counter of his shop, butchers cut steaks to order and prepare red chile.

"I've been shopping here for the past 20 years," Virginia Whipple said. "You can't beat it. Not only do they have the best meats, but they treat you with respect."

Nelson said that meat cutting is an art that is disappearing due to the fact that most large chain stores don't custom cut meat.

"A lot of people go to the meat sections of the chain stores and ring a bell," he said. "If the store has the cut they're looking for, good. But if they don't, then that customer is out of luck. The truth of the matter is that chain stores don't have sides of locally grown beef in their cooler. And they don't have people who know how to fabricate the products. We do, and always will."

Source: Albuquerque Journal

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