Studio 608 - Local Pig

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.

01

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

Matt Kafka

Co-Owner of Local Pig

02

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

03

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

04

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

CHARCUTERIE | shahr-koo-tuh-ree

n, pl; a store where pork products, as hams, sausages, and pâtés are sold.

05

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

06

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

Local Pig Map of Connected Farmers

07

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

Kansas City Map Graphic

East Bottoms Missouri River

08

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

09

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

Traditional vs. Open

Local Pig

10

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

Facing South Across from Local Pig

11

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

Programmatic Map of Neighborhood

Industrial | Commercial Residential

12

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

Railroad Tracks North of Local Pig

13

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

Transport Map East Bottoms

Industrial Route Local Pig Consumer Route

14

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

15

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

16

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

17

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

18

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

AXON HERE

19

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

20

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

21

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

22

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

Local Pig

Pigwich

Local Pig

Pigwich

10

12

2

4

6

8

23

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

24

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

Occupancy of Pigwich & Local Pig

25

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

26

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

27

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

28

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

The Door

29

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

30

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

31

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

32

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

33

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.”

34

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

35

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

36

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

37

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

38

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

From left to right: Charlotte Dandieu, Matt Kufka, Thomas Hickey, Austin Griffis

39

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC

40

Local Pig | Emerging Economies KC