Marin Sun Farms Butcher Shop — Attraction in Oakland

Great selection of stellar meats, and I found Zachary, the person running the store this afternoon, knowledgeable and helpful in my selections. For people used to mass-manufactured beef, the flavors of grass fed regional beef may come as a surprise. (Completely different animal, no pun intended) For me it was a delicious one. The ribeyes are to die for, and the one time I caught a tough steak, (happens to anyone who eats a lot of meat or has a large family that does, like I do) they immediately replaced the steak without question, and were super friendly about it. Cook's tip: Get the short rib patty or the bacon-short rib patty when available. They make a mouth-watering burger. I highly recommend this place. Also to the people critical of them here, give them a chance to make it right! They will. And, they own the LAST USDA inspected slaughterhouse in the San Francisco Bay Area. Between having my beef frozen or shipped out from 1000 miles away or more, I prefer to get mine regionally with a family owned farm, even if it does cost a little more sometimes. It's worth it. Pictured: Recently Purchased and Gorgeous ribeye from Marin...

A very inconsistent product line, I have been to their shop too many times to count over the past 3 years and all I can say is that while I am all in for local and 100% grass fed and finished meat that is treated humanly, the butcher-shop needs to improve the customer service, in terms of knowledge and lastly the quality of the products they sell. I feel that the only reason the are so mediocre is due to the lack of choices for butcher-shops in the bay area that only offer grass fed products. Many a times the lamb I bought from them tasted like mutton and the beef's fat was white and not the traditional yellow of grass fed beef nor did it have the more meaty and beefy taste typical of grass fed beef. I gave up on them and will not shop there any more. My choices are Markegards at the farmer market and Sun Fed Ranch which is offered at Nugget Markets...

Quality ranges from really good to inedible. My latest experience happened when I bought a whole chicken, the chicken had every bone but it's legs broken, the skin was missing in places and the odor was off. $20+ out the window. It was so flat that I initially thought it had been butterflied. On other occasions they leave way too much tallow on their beef. Some tallow is ok but when you buy ribeye for $25-30 and literally more than a third of it is fat (checked with my scale), that to me is just not acceptable. So after the latest chicken disaster I finally won't go shopping...