With the grand opening of Fatted Calf Charcuterie’s first San Francisco outlet occurring less than a week ago, things at the store are still somewhat hectic as the dozen or so new team members (myself included) that were hired familiarize themselves with the new digs. For people like myself with limited retail experience on their resume, there has also been a need to become familiar with operating in a customer-facing business. Not that it’s exactly rocket-science, but it is still very different from working in a seated position at a desk while staring blankly at a computer for a whole day.
In addition to learning general operating policies and procedures, new Fatted Calf team members have also had a staggering assortment of tasty products to become intimately familiar with. This sampling of products in the display case from last Saturday night doesn’t fully represent the countless varieties of fresh sausages, cured meats and custom cuts that are on display in a given week.
It is not uncommon to rotate in new products throughout the day, so what’s available in the case can change over the course of a few hours and we are required to be able to discuss the finer points of just about everything on sale. It’s a lot to digest but so far I think I’m enjoying working at the store (I’m not just saying this because my employers may be reading this). In a departure from my previous jobs, I’m really enjoying being in a position to talk all day about something that I love – meat (really good meat) – and get paid to do so. Not only do I enjoy talking about meat, so do all of the customers that come to the store. We’ve been receiving great feedback from both Fatted Calf regular customers and residents of Hayes Valley (and the entire city of SF for that matter); people are really excited that we are in the neighborhood. My SF friends are excited too and some have been kind enough to visit me at the store to sample our meats.
Part of our on-the-job training includes lots of product tasting and to say that I’m also really enjoying all of the Fatted Calf goods would be a huge understatement. Here are three different varieties of large-diameter cured salumi. From left to right we have sopressata (spicy), finocchiona (fennel) and al’Arancia (anise and orange).
In addition to my daily responsibilities of answering customer questions, fulfilling customer orders and breaking down cuts of meat for customers, there is a lot of general ‘shop-upkeep’ that occurs during the day. Depending on the shift I am assigned to work, I am expected to either help open or close the store. The biggest part of those tasks is setting up or putting away the contents of the display case. During the day, I can also expect to periodically restock the case, sweep, help make sandwiches, set up some of our non-meat retail items (olives, salads, cheese etc), and adjust the blackboard to accurately reflect current display-case selections and prices.
Behind the retail space of the store, there is a small kitchen housing the dish room, some space to prep various food items, and the walk-in cooler. The cooler is home to all sorts of goodies, including a very large collection of salumi in various stages of the curing process.
As of Saturday night, there was also a very nice selection of beasts awaiting further processing, including a whole pig (from Hudson Ranch in Napa), a whole lamb (from Bellwether Farms in Sonoma), and a quarter steer (from Magruder in Washington, I believe). You can also make out a section of bone-in ribeye from Magruder between the pig and the lamb – this has been dry-aging for approximately two weeks.
I was sorry that I was not scheduled to work on Sunday as that was the day that pig was broken down. On Monday morning, I saw that the pig had been cut up and processed into many different and delicious cuts, including some tasty shoulder sections and a lovely looking 15 pound porchetta. By Tuesday morning, we had the pig’s head for sale, nestled between the slab bacon and the prepackaged bacon and pancetta in the case.
Customers seemed pretty excited to see such an offering. Alas, by the end of my eight-hour shift at 4:30pm, there were still no takers.
Here’s another shot of the salumi.
At some point, I hope learn the fine art of butchering and crafting all these treats. Until then, the idea of talking about meat every day with throngs of hungry and enthusiastic customers has made me content.
See, I’m actually smiling while on the job!
