Thank You
Hey Local Pig, Thank you for allowing us to come visit you guys, taking time out of your days to help us gain a better understandinvg of a real local business, and seeing why it has been and will remain successful. We greatly appreciated the opportunity to sit down with Matt as well as just observe you all in your working environment. You will be sure to see us pop in from time to time, at the very least just to get some more bacon.
Thanks,
Austin, Charlotte, & Thomas
Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
University of Kansas Studio 608 Emerging Economies Design Project, Fall 2014
The analysis of emerging economies set forth in this studio looks to discover and unpack what makes a small business in Kansas City exciting, successful, and revolutionary within its field. This process is made up of several steps of research, including site visits, an in-depth interview, and diagramming. The following analysis of The Local Pig, a butcher shop located in the East Bottoms of Kansas City, Missouri, is our attempt at re-telling the story of how the shop and the people tethered to it are successful in their craft. The shop as space is examined; by doing so we are able to see how a quality product has the ability to positively impact Kansas City at local and regional levels.
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Matt Kafka
Co-Owner of Local Pig
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
t r e V
t n I ical
n o i t egra
“We know where everything has been, where it’s going, and where it’s gonna end up. So you start with the farmer. Then we have the slaughterhouse, and then from the slaughterhouse we bring those whole animals into here, and we start breaking ‘em down. And then we give them to the consumer.”
SUPERMARKET
LOCAL PIG
MATT KAFKA
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Meat’s Role in the Human Diet
“If you don’t eat meat every day, and you eat it every other day, you can pay a little bit more money for your meat, because it’s more nutritious, it’s more sustainable than If you just go into the grocery store and buy that meat. There it’s just a commodity they’re just trying to push. Yes it’s going to be cheaper, and you can eat it every day. But is it going to be filled with the salt water solution and filler there? Are you really getting more? Yes and no.” Matt Kafka
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
CHARCUTERIE | shahr-koo-tuh-ree
n, pl; a store where pork products, as hams, sausages, and pâtés are sold.
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Local Pig Map of Connected Farmers
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Kansas City Map Graphic
East Bottoms Missouri River
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
y r e v E
k c o l B
“That’s frugalness, and being a small business . . . it’s in our origins. If we go back, and we look at the 20s and 30s, when a butcher was on every block. Maybe not every block, but every little neighborhood, where every community had a butcher; He had to use everything. He didn’t have to, but it was a waste if he didn’t . . . We’re back to those original recipes.”
MATT KAFKA
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Traditional vs. Open
Local Pig
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Facing South Across from Local Pig
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Programmatic Map of Neighborhood
Industrial | Commercial Residential
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Railroad Tracks North of Local Pig
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Transport Map East Bottoms
Industrial Route Local Pig Consumer Route
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
t i h W
s a e-W
x o B hed
“It was just a white-washed place, white-washed walls, sat vacant and empty for a couple years. We both just walked in and said, “It’s the right price, we don’t care about the location” . . . and we could just do whatever we wanted because it was a white-washed box.”
MATT KAFKA
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Building History
“The post office was in here for two years, the United States Postal Service . . . And then there was like a grunge band, that did all of their rehearsals in here for a while, this was a brothel for a while, all the bedrooms upstairs were fit to a twin size bed, for the brothel; you know, bar’s down here, then you go up to the brothel. It’s a fascinating building.” Matt Kafka
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Location
“If you have something that people want, they’re gonna come to you. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 40 minute drive one way. They may not come to you every week, which we would like, but they are gonna come to you ever three, four weeks, maybe every 6 weeks, or every few months, they’re going to come to you.” Matt Kafka
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Traditional vs. Open
“People didn’t realize what they were missing in their lives, coming in and enjoying where your food came from, and having that connection. At the heart of it, they have a connection, cause when they walk in, you see that there is a butcher block table right there. “ Matt Kafka
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
AXON HERE
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Space Relationship Axon
e h t s ’ It
s e Vib
“Why is it that you come to this shop, and you get excited or you feel good?” It’s the vibes, it’s the emotion from the yellow, it feels like you’ve lived here. I mean, there are books right there, and if a customer grabs that book, and they want to borrow it, do it. Just bring it on back please.”
MATT KAFKA
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Local Pig
Pigwich
Local Pig
Pigwich
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4
6
8
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Occupancy of Pigwich & Local Pig
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Ex p
n o i ans
p o h of S
“There are still people I know that don’t realize Pigwich and Local Pig are the same place. They’re like, “What? There’s a butcher shop there? I just had a sandwich there.” Or the opposite, they come in here, always through the front door, not even realizing there’s a whole sandwich shop and a patio right there over on the east side.”
MATT KAFKA
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
The Door
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Before Door | After Door
s e g a St “One thing we require before we hire anybody, is to stage. Stage is a French term, meaning, you volunteer to work in the shop for a day. That’s to see if you fit our culture, and the folks that are here, and two, to see if you have a good work ethic. We can tell usually within two to three hours if you’re gonna have a good work ethic or not.” MATT KAFKA
Camaraderie
“Most of the folks here that work, go and do things together after work also. We’ll go to the Royals game together, and hang out. That’s really nice, too. They’re together with each other for five days, 10 hours a day, and then they still like each other enough, that they can go out and hang out with each other too.” Matt Kafka
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
The Craft in Preparation
“In a sense, you’re buying directly from the farmer. We’re just the mediator that’s trying to carve that whole animal into something that’s beautiful.” Matt Kafka
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Unpacking the Pig Heads
“All of our butchers are chefs, so we bring in chefs who want to be butchers, and we train them to be butchers so they have that inspiration for how to take good quality product and food and make it into something that’s really special for all the people that come in to buy it.”
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Matt Kafka
Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
Un
o f m o c
e l b a rt
“How do we make people uncomfortable? How do we get people to question, just moving along on the same path or trend that they’ve always been on?”
MATT KAFKA
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
m m Co
t n e m it
“For small businesses, you have to be fully committed when you do something, and when you execute you have to act with integrity and stay with that, and work it out until you see it doesn’t work, and then bend it, or don’t do it half-assed”
MATT KAFKA
The Chair
“We know we were the first ones in town to have these, and now there’s at least four or five other places in town that we frequent that have these exact same chairs because they copied shamelessly, which is fine, copy shamelessly!”
Matt Kafka
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
From left to right: Charlotte Dandieu, Matt Kufka, Thomas Hickey, Austin Griffis
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC
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Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC