Story by Bryan A Hollerbach | Photos by Brian Fagnani
After decades of supermarket impersonality, old-school butcher shops – staffed by old-school butchers – are regaining popularity, especially on the coasts. In certain areas of St. Louis, of course, such shops have never fallen from favor. One prime example: Baumann’s Fine Meats in Brentwood, where for more than two decades, Charlie Baumann (grandson of the man who founded the shop in 1946) has been putting his stamp on things – dispensing gorgeous cuts of meat, crafting artisanal sausages of all sorts, and otherwise reminding customers old and new of the deficiencies of computer-spewed printouts, shrink wrap, bar codes and big-box processing.
This article appears in Jul 1-31, 2010.