Johnson's Sausage Shoppe, Inc — Local services in Rio

First let me say it hurts writing this review. I had been going to Johnson's for 20+ years. I have never been to another processor in my 30 years of hunting and have always enjoyed the level of professionally processed venison. This is not the case any longer and will never step foot in this establishment again. I am trophy whitetail hunter and have multiple deer under my belt in the Pope and Young category. I say this not to credit myself but to explain that I understand sizing of deer and in particular, body size. The most recent deer I left at Johnson's was an extremely average 3.5 year old buck. Absolutely nothing special about the size of the body and in fact my daughter took a 2.5 year old deer and it was noticeably larger. The scam here is that you are told you have shot a "giant" whitetail and the levels of processing and meat are grossly exaggerated. In this case I was not asked how many pounds of the sausage and or sticks I would like so Johnson's took it upon themselves to convert basically my entire "giant" deer into sausage and sticks as this is by far the most expensive category of processing. When presented a $750.00 bill for processing a deer I about fell over. I had never spent more than 200.00 so I called of course. Management listed and said they would work with me. When the owner (Chris) got involved this was not the case. I was told that she could not help that I shot a "giant" whitetail and how would I like to pay. I of course tried to reason with her and she said i I could not afford it we could break the payments up, I could pay with a couple checks and credit card payments. Basically a payment plan for meat. Insulting! When I then tried to reason with her again she told me I was to pay in full or she would report me to the DNR for deer abandonment. When I asked the what the ramifications were for that she told me it was like leaving a deer in the ditch and I would lose my hunting privileges for (2) years and a get a $500.00 fine. This flowed from her like this had happened several times in the past. The owner was rude, and extremely bullish in her attach and mind you this took place the middle of her store. At that point i decided to let this go as her the (2) employees that were standing next to us look extremely uncomfortable. I do accept some responsibility in this situation by the way and offered to pay half of this unbelievable bill and this was not acceptable. In the end I got (6) boxes of venison. (60) pounds of sausage, (60) pounds of sticks, (6) pounds of jerky along with the back straps and tenderloins. So roughly 135 pounds of meat. Way more than any one deer could produce in the minds of not just me but all of the established hunters I brought this up to. The overwhelming consensus is that sausage is being added to your order for bulk weight processing increases and most would never know. Beware of this as it is very easy to do. In the end I will never step foot in this building again which is a shame. I have (4) hunters in my immediate family and the business they lost over something like this is substantial. Horrible experience to be treated like that and take...

LOST CAPE - If I could vote for a zero stars I would. Let me first let everyone know this is the first review I have EVER written and the only reason I am writing this is so people don't get treated like I did and have to go through the same situation.

I brought in a very nice 9 point buck in mid November during bow season around 8 o'clock at night. I live an hour away so it was a bit of a drive but I had no other choice as everything else was closed at the time, if I had waited until the next day none of this would have happened but then again the truth about what goes on at this place would come to light either. Anyhow, when dropping the deer off I specified I wanted it caped out they said not a problem, gave me the tag for getting it caped, put it on the deer and told me to take the deer out back and someone would be waiting for you. I drove around, dropped it off and watched some guy drag it into the back of the wear house. Little did I know that would be the last time I ever saw the rack.

When I came to pick up the meat a couple months later I got all the meat back (not how I wanted but thats a whole different issue) and there was no cape to be found. They searched for awhile but came up with nothing. I texted the owner a picture of the deer so they could look at it and try to find it and they said they would call me the next day with results. About a week went by and I didn't hear anything so I ended up calling them. After a long heated conversation confirming that they had lost the cape I was accused of black mailing and I wouldn't receive any compensation for my lost cape. I argued more and the owner finally got her to agree to call other meat processing shops to see what they would do in this situation.

About a month went by with no contact. Within that month I called several times and left messages but the owner magically always seemed to be "out" when I called. I finally got in touch with her and she again confirmed that they lost my cape (we had already discussed this once before) and I asked her what other meat processing shops had said. She said she never called any. I had done my own calling and out of the two places I called both said they would give me a refund and/or some type of compensation. After explaining this to her she said she would refund me the $40 for the cape and give me a gift card. It took her about a week to refund the money and if have yet to receive any gift card and I have no expectations of getting one at this point. I had to pry to get my $40 back and luckily didn't have to go to court for items I did not receive.

For those of you that have read this far I strongly urge you not to go here. With the cost of the processing ($350) and the worst customer service I've ever experienced I will steer all hunting and farmers a like away from this shop. There are much more reputable places full of people willing to help you out unlike this one. I hope sharing this experience will save you from losing a cape and being treated...

Like many of the reviews that I read dealing with this place was terrible. I got multiple phone calls and messages stating that I had to give cutting instructions same day because my pigs were being processed the following day. No time or warning given at all. I got a text stating that the pigs were done and the bill was incredibly high. I called in asking if I could go over why the processing was so much and was immediately insulted and referred as "Sparky" I had someone else take over the delivery process and he was treated equally as bad and told if he didn't like it not to send animals there. The owner specifically said to us that Google Reviews dont pay her bills. We were told we had 10 boxes of meat and when we picked up we got 9. We were told one box failed and had to be combined into another box but 8 boxes had equal amounts and one had 4 small packages of bacon, looks like a scam to me. By the time I got my meat home and into the freezer several of the packages are already filled with air due to poor seal with the vacuum sealing method used. I have more but I've probably made my point.

I would absolutely not recommend anyone ever take animals to this place...