Eric Gallegos uses a multitude of carving tools to break down meat into mouthwatering cuts.
Chop shop TABLE
E.A. Brady’s is a craft butchery serving up fresh cuts for your winter platters. BY JAYE BEELER
// PHOTOS BY STACY FEYER-SALO
Walking into craft butchery E.A. Brady’s you’re met with a display case offering a copious amount of local pasture-raised meat, beautifully arranged like a work of art, rather than heaving in bulk. Don’t worry, there’s loads more in the walk-in cooler. The case is just a promise of what’s available — namely beef, pork, lamb and poultry, always fresh, often smoked, and beautifully trimmed into steaks, roasts and chops. “We are a retail butcher shop that specializes in whole animal breakdown of local animals and turning them into as many products as we can,” said Evan Brady, head butcher, who co-owns the place with his brother Aidan. “We also cure and smoke here. About the only thing we buy is chicken feet and some other items like that. Everything else we do ourselves.” Six years ago, the brothers opened E.A. Brady’s in Eastown, and in doing so paid homage to their heritage — as three of their four great-grandfathers were butchers and that fourth great-grandfather was a cattle broker who spent his career buying from ranches and 30
GRAND RAPIDS MAGAZINE / DECEMBER 2020
