Barb’s Butchery — Attraction in City of Beacon

Update: I am bumping my original review from a 3 star to a 4 star for the superb customer service. The thoughtful, kind response both below and in private email from Barb is exactly why I choose to support small local business. Thank you, Barb, for your excellent service.

Original review: I enthusiastically support Beacon’s local small businesses and will pay a little extra to do so. In theory, Barb’s Butchery would be my go to place for all things meat. So, it pains me to write that after my trip to Barb’s, I won’t be returning.

This past weekend, my husband and I stopped in to buy sandwiches to go. We ordered two pulled chicken sandwiches each with a side of chips and when the order came up, the bag was so light that I actually told the woman who had helped me that she must have forgotten a sandwich. How could two sandwiches of pulled meat sit in a paper bag that was light enough to blow away in the wind? As if the bag contained less than a bagel?

But I was wrong; the woman who had prepared the order indicated that the other sandwich was indeed in the bag, underneath the other. I opened the bag to confirm and nearly choked on my shock at the slim offerings inside. Our sandwiches were the size of sliders. Our potato chip sides maybe consisted of 15 chips. And that’s a generous estimation. In terms of taste, the sandwiches were fine. Some chips were crisp, some were soggy. I attributed the bitterness in my mouth while I ate my dinner to the fact that I felt so ripped off. I was still hungry when I finished the meal. If those sandwiches were half the price, I wouldn’t have felt like I was sold a bridge.

Here’s why I won’t be back: while I understand that I will pay a premium to shop at a place like Barb’s – a premium I normally would not take issue with because I want small business to thrive! – the amount of money we paid felt outrageous for the paltry offerings we received. If I want to pay $30 for two sandwiches and two drinks, I’ll take myself over to StockUp, which serves larger portions on better bread and with more varied side offerings.

I simply can’t afford what Barb’s...

I don’t mind the prices, money is NEVER the issue, because to get fresh local food I understand that it is going to be pricier, or the service when I’ve gone inside the nice little butcher shop. The meat seems fresh and seems like it would be just fine. But what I really don’t think is nice is the attitude (or rude remarks made after the comments are posted instead of owning to their mistakes or just apologizing, the owner thinks Subtly insulting others is best) the owner seems to have with these reviews. My boyfriend offered to get some breakfast sandwiches. We probably could have just made them at home but we decided we should go to barbs. It was white bread with lettuce, tomato, egg, sausage and cheese. The sausage was paper thin, egg was super salty and tons of pepper. It was an “ok” sandwich at best.

What I really would like to say, is that I’m sorry we changed your menu and ordered something different, maybe if we didn’t your sausage wouldn’t have been so thin and tasteless, or eggs so salty. I hope that when you comment on this review you rethink your words and understand that as a business owner you can’t expect everyone to be happy with you, but you can have a different reaction when people don’t. You can choose to be the jerk owner who tells us to go to Dunkin’ Donuts, (which is not part of our breakfast), or you can be the owner who says something like this, “maybe next time you can just give us a call and explain what went wrong.” I’m glad you have a nice business and we will GLADLY stay...

So here we go. The sandwiches we got (2) were amazing. They were $14 a piece and so worth it. Very fresh and tasty. Can definitely tell the quality was there. We also got two sodas. We ordered 1/2 lb ground beef, 1/2 lb ground pork $7 each. The ground beef was not properly bagged, it was placed in a French fry cardboard thing and wrapped in brown paper. I didnt open the brown paper until three days later to find it was hard. I opened the pork and it was wrapped the same. It was sour and smelled like fish. We got 1.2lbs of chicken cut there which was interesting. This was wrapped appropriately and was fine and tasted good. This was $23. We also got four slices of jerky and that was very good. Unfortunately we didn't notice the price of the jerky. Our total was $116... obviously we were mis charged unless the jerky was $50 and it was our fault for not finding these discrepancies until four days later. However, we threw away the ground beef and pork.. so this was very upsetting that we wasted a substantial amount of money.. i also strongly believe that 1.2lbs of chicken for $23 is extremely high. I used to live in PA and would get fresh cut chicken breast at a butcher and never spent nearly that much. You also shouldn't expect to eat there, seating is limited. I dont think it was worth the price and I'm warning people to cook what you...