Main Street Meats Chattanoogas neighborhood butcher shop

Published: Nov. 12, 2021, 5:12 p.m.

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Chef Erik Niel says Main Street Meats began as a kernel of an idea that already existed. He and his wife Amanda Niel own and operate the butcher shop in addition to Easy Bistro & Bar, both in Chattanooga, Tenn.

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The award-winning chef\\u2019s culinary career spans 25 years. Although he attended the University of Texas at Austin to study psychology with a minor in business, food has always been his passion. He attended Johnson & Wales Culinary School in Vail, Colo. In 2005, after working in professional kitchens he and Amanda \\u2013 both in their 20s \\u2013 opened Easy Bistro & Bar in downtown Chattanooga.

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In 2014, the Niels took over Main Street Meats. Erik says, tongue firmly in cheek, that at age 35 he needed a new challenge that would push him out of his comfort zone. But he also believed in the business.

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\\u201cThis was the one great chance for Chattanooga to have a local butcher,\\u201d he said. But how could he and his team of artisan butchers use old-school techniques to successfully run a combination contemporary butcher shop and restaurant to become Chattanooga\\u2019s neighborhood butcher shop?

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In this episode of the MEAT+POULTRY Podcast, Chef Erik Niel explains how he and the Main Street Meats team did just that, and why whole-animal butchery is key to the shop\\u2019s current success and its future as a fixture in more neighborhoods across the southeast.

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