KILLIAN BEEF CAN WE BUY YOUR BEEF?
ARTICLE BY TIFFANY SELCHOW & PHOTOS BY HAZEL LIGHTS PHOTOGRAPHY
Phil Killian, who is from a long line of ranchers, always thought he’d just be that. A rancher, far from town and other people, surrounded by open spaces, cattle, and a few horses, working hard to raise high-quality beef. As we all know, life has a funny way of taking you down a totally different path than you had planned and that is where Phil currently sits. This is the best kind of business story. One born of demands made by potential consumers. Phil and Jenna, Phil’s wife, often received the same question from their friends: “Can we buy your beef?” After numerous requests, Phil and Jenna decided to make the answer to that question, “yes.” They purchased cattle from their family’s ranch and fixed up the old feed yard that Phil’s great grandfather had built in the 1920s in Mesa, PG. 28 :: SPRING 2020
Arizona. Then, they started feeding those cattle in the middle of town and sold a few sides and quarters. But the story doesn’t stop there. The Killian name is well known in the Mesa area which often brings visitors to their doorsteps. Neighbors started asking about the cattle they were seeing in the feed yard pens which progressed to the question of how they could buy some of the beef from those animals. Of course, most people aren’t interested in buying half of a beef or in getting all the different cuts that come with that process, so Phil and Jenna come up with yet another solution. To fulfill the local customer demand, Killian Beef became a storefront almost four years ago. This coincided with a time
