The advertising tagline “Where Woodstock Meets” is pretty obvious, but it’s also the truth: Locals have been crossing paths at Woodstock Meats for 60 years now, and it has been the owner/operators’ mission to get on a first-name basis with their customers from the get-go. “Hospitality is important to us. We operate as a living room or a kitchen of Woodstock,” says former chef Sam Iapoce, who has been the store’s general manager for six years and became a co-owner with Dave Majuri, Ian Martin and Nels Leader in 2022. “We make interacting with customers a high priority.”
In a town where a higher-than-average percentage of residents are vegans, vegetarians or animal rights advocates, the fact that the local butcher shop doesn’t get picketed is a sign that it must be doing something right, in terms of finding its niche in that town’s socioeconomic ecosystem. The folks at Woodstock Meats love their community – just last week, they were one of the primary sponsors of the town’s Earth Day Fair and cleanup – and the community loves them back. Stay tuned to social media for an announcement of a “cookout, pig roast and barbecue” to occur sometime this summer to celebrate the store’s 60th anniversary and express gratitude to the customer base that has made Woodstock Meats feel welcome, valued and financially viable through thick and thin.
The store was founded by Phil Spinelli in March 1964, back in the days when every small town and metropolitan neighborhood had its own butcher shop. The meat department of the new supermarket across the street offered stiff competition, but Woodstock Meats stayed focused on providing both superior products and a friendly social hub, and so persevered. By the mid-‘70s, Grand Union’s own longtime head butcher, Vince Christofora, had jumped ship and taken over the business. He ran a tight ship for a quarter-century and trained a whole generation of Woodstock food service workers before turning over Woodstock Meats to his son Kevin in the early 2000s. Local boys Majuri and Leader and their friend Martin bought out the business in 2015.
Iapoce speaks of Vince Christofora as a “local legend” and a “beloved character of the town,” who continues to this day to show up at Woodstock Meats every morning. “He checks out the meat case and makes sure it’s up to snuff. I’m happy to have lived up to his standard.”
The new owners were committed not only to maintaining Woodstock Meats’ sterling reputation for quality products, a clean environment and personalized service, but also to making the space more of a one-stop shop where weekenders can stock up on pretty much everything they need. They expanded the building’s footprint, adding a new kitchen and more cooler space in the rear of the building. A greater variety of freshly prepared foods is now available at the deli counter, along with the justly famous daily sandwich menu.
Though the main store space is only about 30 by 30 feet, it’s as efficiently organized as the living quarters below decks on a sailboat. “We’re very much a destination grocery as well as a classic full-service deli,” says Iapoce, “but we’re also going for a bodega vibe.” There are sections for staples, packaged goods, fresh produce, dairy products, snacks, bottled beverages, regional craft beers, small-batch artisanal ice cream from AlleyWay in Saugerties and baked goods including cakes from Woodstock’s own Disco Linda, but also candy and cigarettes. No judgment, regardless of what you choose to purchase. “Woodstock’s an eclectic place, and that’s why we’re an eclectic shop,” he notes. “We’re not compromising our small-townness.”
The store’s primary spotlight, of course, is on the superb selection of meats. The current owners have not only continued their predecessor’s policy of having “everything antibiotic- and hormone-free,” but also put more emphasis on local sourcing. You can get beautiful beef and pork from Kilcoyne Farms, lamb and pork from Edelweiss Farms, seafood from Nat Kagan and poultry from Campanelli Farms, as well as from reputable producers slightly further afield, such as Bell & Evans chickens and pork from Leidy’s in Pennsylvania. “Our general approach has been grass-fed and grain-finished for the last five to ten years,” says Iapoce.
If you’re at peace with the idea of living at the top of the food chain, the most Earth-friendly way to be a meat consumer is indeed to support local producers who raise their animals humanely, in clean and spacious conditions, and feed them healthy diets. This sustainable approach also calls for not wasting any part of the carcass, and Woodstock Meats enthusiastically embraces the “nose-to-tail butchery” philosophy. Nothing its staff cuts up is wasted. In the freezer section you can find all sorts of organ meats, tallow, odds and ends like hog cheeks for guanciale. They make their own stocks and bone broth, jerky, nitrate-free bacon… even a line of raw dog food.
The shop’s “vast sausage program” deserves special mention. “Our sausages are all housemade,” says Iapoce. “We make 12 to 20 iterations and keep five to eight on hand at any given time.” Some are seasonal and especially worth seeking out. We took home a sample of ramp sausage, available only during a brief time window each spring. It was fresh and juicy, bursting with flavor, thickly flecked with dark-green ramp shoots foraged from local woodlands.
Prices for these local meat products aren’t cheap, but the knowledgeable butchers here can steer customers with tight budgets to alternative cuts that are nearly as good as the priciest ones, such as chuck eye, “the poor man’s ribeye.” If your heart is set on lamb, you can choose between paying a comparable premium to have it shipped from Australia or New Zealand or to obtain it from a nearby small family farm. “Talk to your butcher. We like to collaborate,” Iapoce advises the cost-conscious. “We like to keep a finger on the pulse of where quality and price meet.”
One unforeseen benefit of the shop’s heavy reliance on local producers was its resilience throughout the COVID crisis. Short supply chains meant more reliable supply, and there were no delays in decisionmaking of the sort built into large corporate bureaucracies. “We had the ability to process new information quickly, to think on our feet,” says Iapoce. “We didn’t close for a single hour during the pandemic, beyond our usual hours. And we were able to keep most of our staff… We all decided to go to work, be present and do our best. We asked ourselves, ‘How do we use this opportunity to show people how much we care?’ I think Woodstock would’ve had a harder time if Woodstock Meats hadn’t been around.”
Iapoce may have been the manager who guided the shop through the public health emergency that caused many businesses to fold, but he deflects most of the credit to his dedicated and professional staff. “Our team on the floor work incredibly hard. We’re always chasing being a little bit better the next day.”
He also feels immensely grateful to the shop’s loyal long-term customer base. “This is a small-knit community. We have tried to be excellent stewards of an excellent business that has served this community for so long,” he says. “When you’re a multi-decade operation, you get people cheering you.”
Woodstock Meats is located at 57 Mill Hill Road (Route 212) in downtown Woodstock, open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. To place an order or learn more, including about daily and seasonal specials, call (845) 679-7917 or visit www.woodstockmeats.com, www.facebook.com/woodstockmeats or www.instagram.com/woodstockmeats.
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