Meat expert Melissa Evans offers personal service — including advice on cooking her cuts of meat — at She Said Butcher Shop in north Moorhead. (Photo/Nancy Hanson)

moorhead business news

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Butcher Melissa Evans wants to help you discover delicious cuts of meat that may have you baffled.

“When people come in, I love to talk to them about meat. I’m here to help them learn and feel comfortable,” she says. “Fear of ruining a very good piece of beef may keep you from buying it. I’m here to make sure it’s a success.”

Melissa opened Moorhead’s newest stop for quality meat just after New Year’s Day. Her store, located near the former Land O’Lakes/Cass Clay milk distribution center at 2101 Fifth Avenue North, is a one-woman operation dedicated to providing delicious cuts of beef and pork (soon, too, chicken and seafood) for the dining pleasure of her growing corps of fans.

While her store, She Said Butcher Shop, is very young, Melissa’s experience in the meat and seafood business has provided a firm foundation to build on. The Bismarck native has lived in Fargo-Moorhead since 2008, when – fresh from a year at Bismarck State College – she came to attend North Dakota State University’s veterinary technician program. “But I found out I’m too sensitive to work with sick animals,” she says.

Instead, she shifted to Meat Science and completed the program from start to finish, learning the ins and outs of red-meat butchery from musculature to how to evaluate and process cuts. After graduating in 2015, she went to work in supermarkets, starting out as assistant manager of the meat and seafood department at the Northport Hornbacher’s, then moving on to manage the same department at Cashwise in Moorhead.

“I really liked getting a chance to talk with our customers,” she says now. “But the physical demands of the work took me out of the business – working with 1,000 pounds of turkeys in the three weeks before Thanksgiving and 500 pounds of ham at Christmas.” She injured one of her rotator cuffs (the band of muscles and tendons in the shoulder), then tore it. After surgery to repair it, she could no longer handle the weight of products her job required.

Running her own meat business provided the right alternative. “I’m starting very small. Then I’ll expand it,” Melissa explains. For now, her leading product is cuts of Certified Angus Beef – “it’s more prime, with more marbling,” she notes. She primarily works with beef from the Dakotas and pork from Minnesota, purchasing it through Quality Beef in West Fargo. Her planned selection of seafood will come from Morrie’s.

Along with more familiar cuts, Melissa is offering new cuts. Muscles that make up the chuck, for example, can be taken apart for steaks of varying tenderness. She cites Delmonico steak, skirt steak, flat iron steak and her favorite, the chuck eye steak. She describes it as “the poor man’s ribeye – the best, meatiest cut out of the piece.” All of her meats are vacuum-packed in freezer bags, giving customers the option of cooking them fresh or storing them in their freezers. She has cut and packaged every cut of meat she sells.

Her first specials have been meat bundles of beef, pork and a combo of both. “I’ll have the perfect selection for the grill to pick up on the way to the lakes,” she vows.

Melissa has lots of plans as her shop and her clientele grow. She plans to add a smokehouse as the weather improves. She has also signed a contract with a grower who will operate a farmer’s market in her parking lot this summer, providing the fresh produce to round out customers’ dinner menus.

Moving from leading a meat department staff to self-employment, she says, has not been as much of a change as it might seem. The difference? “I only have myself to boss around. The hardest thing for me is knowing when to quit and go home.”

About the unusual name: Melissa calls it the She Said Butcher Shop because, she says, that’s the best part of what she offers. “When you buy at the supermarket, you’re talking to a high school or college kid behind the counter unless you get lucky with the manager. They’re not going to know much about cooking. I do. I want you to go home and be able to say, ‘She said to cook it like this … and it’s delicious.”