I grew up in East Tennessee, where folks waved when they passed you on the street, and Main Street was filled with locally owned specialty shops. It felt like it was stuck in time, but in a good way. Everyone kind of knew everyone else, and that stuck with me.

When I thought about opening The Ventura Meat Company, I wasn’t just thinking about meat. I wanted to build a place where people felt welcome, the way I felt walking into those shops back home.

I moved out to California in my twenties chasing music. That’s a long story (and I’d love to tell you, just ask). Eventually, I landed in Ventura around 2006. By 2008, I was starting to realize that eating well, especially when it came to buying good meat, wasn’t so easy. So, I started buying beef from a local rancher.

The quality was there. But buying a quarter or half cow meant investing in a deep freezer and figuring out what to do with a mountain of ground beef. I remember thinking: “Man, I wish I could just walk into a place and buy this kind of quality, without needing to commit to that much.”

 

Turns out, I was writing a business plan in my head.

 

Fast forward to 2011, and that idea became a reality.

Since then, we’ve seen families grow, kids graduate and head off to college. We’ve been invited to weddings. We’ve been on local podcasts, talked to high school students, and donated to charities that matter to us. Somewhere along the way, that dream I had, of bringing a small-town Tennessee feeling to a business in Ventura, actually came true. And I couldn’t be more grateful.

So yeah, I could’ve used this space to talk about meat.  

But I think it’s more important to talk about why this place exists.
Not just to sell food.
To be a part of this community.