Behind The Scenes At America's Most Famous Butcher | Legendary Eats

[Music] if you've ever been to a steakhouse or a burger joint in the city chances are you've seen this one name on the menu pat la frida meat purveyors is a third generation butcher shop originally based in lower manhattan what started as a small mom and pop shop in the early 1900s has since grown into a 200 million dollar business ever eaten at a shake shack you've had a pat lafritta burger against all odds pat lafrida has become a household name and if anyone is to thank for the company's celebrity status it's this guy right here how's that possible [Music] that's pat junior pat lafrida and sons pat lafrida's pat lafrida and pat lafretta my next guest is a third generation butcher and the owner of la freda meets right here in new york city oh really showing off pat we met up with pat to learn how the city's most popular meat products get from their warehouse to your table hey guys it's spencer and i am here with pat lafrida the man himself and he's going to give us a behind-the-scenes tour of his factory wait what do you say factory facility he's going to give us a behind-the-scenes tour of his facility to see where new york's best steaks get their start pat you ready let's do it let's go [Music] pat took over the business originally named after his grandfather in 1995. he came on board with a unique set of skills that would help shape the future of the company my dad never wanted me in this family business i was the generation that was supposed to go out and get educated and be something bigger and better i graduated college with a finance degree and was a retail broker and absolutely hated being a broker so i begged my dad to join the family business and i really thought that i could expand it and now we're about 500 times larger than we were when i first joined his father's smart investments in the early days combined with pat's business experience meant the company survived while rising rents forced their competitors to shut down today they sell to 1500 restaurants daily and they have plans to triple that number over the next year okay so pat tell me about this room where are we now this is the room where we portion any cut of meat to any specification depending on whatever the restaurants demanded of us i've been seeing some pretty crazy knife skills in here yes i'm a little scared but mostly just very impressed yes i mean like like one butcher will he's been with me for 20 years so i think you'll have some of the most talented butchers in the world in this room [Music] but the heart of the operation is their coveted dry aging room this is the most prized room in the entire building this is our dry age room we have over 3 000 primals aging at any given time so this is the room where the magic happens the magic happens here there are about three to four million dollars worth of beef up on the shelves aging ready to supply any restaurant with any demand in here steaks get aged up to 120 days which pat claims leads to an incredibly tender and juicy cut of meat see ya while that all sounded great we had to know for sure if his stakes were really a cut above the rest and the only way to do that was to taste one for ourselves okay so it's been two days since we were at the production facility in jersey and now we're here at benjamin's they get all of their steaks from pat so we're gonna taste one and see if it actually lives up to the hype let's go i'm hungry [Music] you can still hear that sizzle this is a real feast and i am very excited [Music] first fight here we go i have like butter i was like so tender you barely even have to chew it whoa where's that chef i gotta tell them how good this is all right so i'm here with chef arturo and i have to tell you chef this was an excellent steak appreciate it thank you very much after you've been doing this for so long like i have i mean like i said it's all steak i mean steak take steak steak and you look for the best strictly spread afraid and that's what we do thank you so much chef this was an excellent meal [Music] well there you have it the guy makes a mean steak i never feel like a celebrity chef i love what i do because this is a family business the fact that i still get to work with my dad and see him for a few hours every morning that's what i love i mean there's no time that i don't want to walk into this building and we we just hope that this company lasts forever [Music] you

Channel: Food Insider

Views: 2,339,082

Rating: 4.6956749 out of 5

Keywords: INSIDER, FOOD INSIDER, meat, meats, steak, steaks, pat lafrieda, pat lafrieda meat purveryors, butcher, butchery, shake shack, benjamin prime, steakhouse

Id: oFi_nfnN6gQ

Length: 6min 26sec (386 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 22 2018