TUCSON BUTCHER RUINS DEER MEET

[whisper]

I took my deer to a local business in Tucson, The Sausage Shop, located at 1015 W Prince Rd, AZ 85705. This was the worst experience I have ever had with a business. They have no pride or care for the way they butcher your meat. The owner did not care one bit or even want to see how I got my meat back.

 

Short Version

 

First off I would like to say I was a customer of The Sausage Shop for four years buying meat and sandwiches. I even had my deer butchered by them last year and never had a problem. My meat that I took to them was skinned and quarter with no damage to any of it. I got my meat back with only four packs of loin chops, which seemed sort to me. I called and asked them about it and spoke with Mike. He said to open a pack and see how many chops are in a pack and they would look around there shop to see if missed any. I opened a pack and hair was all over the cut sides of the meat. I opened another pack and same thing and I could not tell how many were in a pack. I called Mike the next day and told him about it. He responded with you have all your meat, there are 6 one inch chops to a pack, that gives you 24", normally their is only 20, and it is not our responsibility how you bring your meat to us, you must of brought it dirty and what you got back is all your deer and what you get is what you get. Upset, that 24 chops still seems sort and he didn't care about the hair on my meat. I went home I opened six more packs of various cuts of meat and all had hair on them and one had big piece of hide on it. I could not believe they gave cut pieces of meat back to me like this. I could understand a hair or two on the meat but when there is 10-15 and hide on it that is unacceptable. If my cut meat has this much stuff on it what does my hamburger have in it. You know they didn't clean it before they grinded it. I thought maybe if they seen what they gave me they would be more understanding. I took the meat to them and ask Ken who said he was the owner to look at my meat. He refused and said I had to talk to Mike. When I refused to talk to Mike and asked agian for him to look at my meat he said I was harassing him and to get out of his store. I said how am I harassing you, I just want you to look at my meat and I pulled out a piece. He then yelled get out, I am calling the cops. I waited out side for them. Two customer came out and said they would wait with me to vow I was not harassing them and one was a off duty cop who did wait. Cops came told them my story. Mike came around the corner and asked the cops if they needed to talk to him. We went over to him and first thing he said to me was, what do you want, you have all your meat. I said fine I have all my meat but what about all the hair on it. He basically said the same thing he said on the phone and added the $70 I paid for them to butcher my deer does not cover them cleaning it and that I brought it in to them dirty. It basically ended at that. I took it to them the same way I did the year before with no problem and how did I get hair on the cuts they made. Call me crazy but doesn't butchering include cleaning. Who wants dirty meat back. What did they do roll it around on a dirty table or kick it around on the floor. Who knows but to me my deer meat is ruined and I am not going to eat it. Its just wrong what they have done. I still can’t believe they would treat a returning customer like this. Some businesses just don’t care about customer service anymore.

 

Please forward this to all your hunting buddies to avoid The Sausage Shop ruining any more precious venision and if any one has had similar experience with this horrible butcher call the following numbers and report them. Also post your comments on every web site your can find. We need to get the word out. No body should trust these guys. Thank you for reading this and if anyone wants the exact long version please email me at craig098@gmail.com.

 

Pima County Health Department - Consumer Health and Food Safety - 520-243-7908

 

AZ Department of Agriculture - Meat Inspection - 520-628-6314

 

AZ Game and Fish - Tucson - 520-628-5376

[huntech]

If you Brought your deer in skinned and quartered how did it have a peice of hide in it when they butchered it? I personally have never had a deer butchered at a shop. (it only takes a few hours or so do to it your self). I have never had a hair prolbem when i do it

[crazy4COUES]

I am sorry to hear about your experience. However, I agree with the above post, how did hair get on your meat if you completely skinned and prepped your deer? Secondly what makes you deer meat so ruined? Can you not still cut it off and wash it? Next time do it yourself. Then you know what has been done to the meat.

[whisper]

I dont know how hide got on it. Did they skin a deer over my meat or lay my meat in a dirty area. Is it even my deer. I don't know. I normally process my own deer but due to time constraints in the past to years I opted to have my meat processed. I won't eat it because to many things are going to be running through my head while eating it and I can't wash hamburger, which they made most of my meat into. Believe me I will not take my meat to a butcher again although I am sure there are good, clean, honest ones.

[justanotherpunk]

Had a similar experience with this same shop. Family emergency dictated that I wouldn't have time to butcher two deer shot by family members myself. Took the deer in skinned and cleaned. When we dropped them off it would have taken a pack of animals to make a mess of things the way they did.

[Diamondbackaz]

You can never go wrong with butchering it yourself. You can cut and portion it for packaging to meet your needs. Use the money you save to pay a butcher to buy yourself a Cabelas meat grinder. I buy myself something every year to improve my processing. This year was a vacuum package machine.

[crazy4COUES]

I dont know how hide got on it. Did they skin a deer over my meat or lay my meat in a dirty area. Is it even my deer. I don't know.

 

Good point...man that really SUCKS! If they do a crummy job like that the shop should be charged for waste of game.

[Coues 'n' Sheep]

Dude that sucks..... But hey, look at the bright side.... if we knew what was in most of the suff we eat we would starve to death!!! So.... just cook it all a bit longer than normal.... don't waist it. It is a shame that people no longer have pride in what they do.....

 

CnS

[bowhuntinmaniac]

I would bet you got someone else's deer.

[SilentButDeadly]

I had an error in my last order of meat that I picked up from them (they gave me two sausage varieties that I didn't order).

 

Otherwise, never had any problem with them. Although, I could have guessed at their volatility from the '$25 dollar a$$-hole removal charge,' and 'listening to your hunting story costs extra' signs they have hanging behind the counter.....

 

Tyson

[Snapshot]

I have known the owner and "Mike" of the "Sausage Shop" for many years, I used to work with Kent's brother. I can say that the quality of their game processing has gone way down hill because of the fact that they have too many animals to process and run a deli at the same time and are sacrificing quality for quantity processing. This is simply unacceptable.

Even though they still make excellent smoked sauasge and specialty stuff, they have gotten very sloppy with everything else. Last year I sent my wife over to pick up my deer meat, they were rude and short with her, and my order was not processed the way I told them I wanted it. After reading about your bad experience, I can say that they have lost me as a customer.

[fatfootdoc]

That happened to me way back in 92 or 93, I killed a mulie in CO and took it to good old Connolys meat market in Flagstaff. I usually butcher my own, but I wanted alot of it made into sausage , so I drop it off and pick it up about a week later. The next day I cant wait to try my venison breakfast sausage, so I throw a package in the skillet and run upstairs to make the bed. Next thing I know it smells like someone is grilling a nice fresh piece of brown lumpy stuff( with the peanuts and corn shells! ) I run down to the kitchen and sure enough the meat is spoiled as spoiled can be. So I check the other packages of meat(70 bucks total for processing ) and it is all bad! So I call Connollys the next day(MOnday) and no answer, well that night in the superinformative Arizona Daily Sun there is a huge article about how the health dept has just shut them down as they had a reefer truck behind the market loaded with deer and it did not have a working refidgeration unit so they were all spoiled!! This happened the day I picked up my deer!! I was just to early and was there before they were shut down. They could have told me the unit was out and the meat was spoiled , but no, those jerks charged me for it anyway. Well they never reopened and I never got my money back and as far as I think they got what they deserved!! ag

[az4life]

I agree about doing it yourself. I self guide, self find, self hunt, self shoot and self pack, so making the extra move to self butcher, just seems what is right. Besides, If I know I am doing the butchering myself, I'm going to take as good of care as possible of the meat before butchering.

Since I had bad experiences from other butchers many years ago, I found what I do with the meat makes it taste better in most cases.

Live an learn..

 

For the amount of meat on a coues deer, it does not make sense to pay someone 70-100 bucks to do it for you.