About Us
Video: Courtesy of Channel 9 WCPO-TV
Video transcript:
Stehlin's Gets Meat the Old-Fashioned Way
"That look like the right thickness?"
John Stehlin is one of the last men standing in a traditional hometown business. We've already introduced you to the Avrils, the Finkes and Gliers -- families that have butchered, packed and sold quality meats in the area for generations -- but Stehlin's Meats in Colerain Township is unique. You see, the t-bone John is cutting didn't come in a box or on a hook. It came in the old-fashioned way -- on the hoof.
"We slaughter hogs from October to the middle of May but we kill beef all year round," he said.
Stehlin's is the last butcher shop in town that goes from standing steer to sirloin steak in house. John and his brother Denny, and cousins Ron and Dick Stehlin, run the slaughterhouse and store their grandfather Butch started unexpectedly in a Colerain Township barn in 1913.
"He got started during the 1913 flood. That's what started him in the business. He was driving cattle down to the stockyards in Cincinnati when they were all flooded out. He had nowhere to go with these cattle so he ended up slaughtering them himself in that barn down there. So, basically, the flood got him in business."
Except for an interruption by World War I, Stehlin's has operated non-stop ever since. The location has changed a handful of times since that barn off Colerain Avenue, but it hasn't gone too far.
The current store is tucked in the northeast corner of Colerain and I-275. For years, the store was just part of a bigger operation that included delivery trucks that were essentially portable butcher shops.
"They used the horse and wagon...trucks to take the meat to the different farms that were around the neighborhood so to speak."
The delivery trucks are long gone now, but the business is still basically the same. The Stehlins slaughter, cut and hang beef every Monday. The cow blood is donated to the Cincinnati Zoo for the vampire bat exhibits. Many of the inedible parts are used in research and teaching labs.
"Let me get this out of the way, so as you can see these animals have been hanging for probably seven to ten days right now."
All the beef ages for about two weeks before it makes it to the store. In addition to the beef and pork and lamb cuts, Stehlin's makes its own sausage, bratts and metts and smokes its own meat with a hickory-fired furnace. Whatever they do, it brings people back. Bob Honerlaw comes once a month
from Hamilton.
"Hey Bob...how long you been comin' here?"
"Let's see...since about 1950."
"It's all good stuff here...best there is...best there is. This is the only place that I've ever seen in the country that's like this...only place to get good stuff like that."
And it's right here...keeping a hometown tradition and a family tradition fresh and alive.
Stehlin's Meat Market 513-385-6164 or 1-800-352-7396