Ron's Butcher Shop and Grocery tries to be a cut above

Just a hop, skip and a jump off Interstate 55, on Route KK in northern Cape Girardeau County, is the unassuming forest green building that is Ron's Butcher Shop and Grocery.

Open the door, and a cowbell alerts of a customer's presence. Step inside, and the aroma of simmering barbecued pulled pork causes a near-swoon.

Welcome to Ron's.

And there is Ron -- Ron Schroeter -- to greet you.

Schroeter, a genial man in a full-length red apron and baseball cap, smiles and asks a customer about her health and her family, and perhaps inquires about a new pickup truck or how the crops are looking.

Ron Schroeter packs meat into a cooler for Stephen Stratman on Wednesday at his butcher shop in Oak Ridge. (GLENN LANDBERG)

The activity and products that emanate from the compact shop are disproportionate. Schroeter and his small crew -- the number fluctuates with the season and with demand -- process all varieties of meat, from beef, pork, goat and sheep raised by local families or ordered in to the butcher shop to deer and other game bagged by local hunters. The work ranges from curing ham and bacon and smoking a variety of meats to preparing fresh sausage and cuts ranging from steaks and roasts to chops and ribs

With the holidays around the corner, Schroeter likely will be smoking more than a few turkeys for area dining tables.

Schroeter, a lifelong resident of Frohna, Missouri, has been in the business for more than 40 years.

"I started working in the meat business while in high school in 1972. I worked at a restaurant and butcher shop up in Ozora for 35 years," Schroeter said, and he struck out on his own when the Ozora business was sold.

"I started the butcher shop here going on eight years. The building was some kind of shop, selling chain saws, lawn mowers and seed corn, and I made it into the butcher shop," Schroeter said. He also bought, remodeled and leased out a restaurant that shares the property, now named Suzy Q's Diner.

A sign hangs on a post outside Ron’s Butcher and Grocery in Oak Ridge. (GLENN LANDBERG)

Schroeter sources meats for individual customers -- quarter and half beef and half or whole hogs. Popular are 25- and 50-pound meat bundles.

"A family can fill up the freezer with different cuts of meat that will last them quite a while," Schroeter said.

For fairs, picnics, graduations, fish fries and church events, he supplies cases of chicken, jack salmon, catfish, shrimp and frog legs. He also caters those sorts of affairs as well as weddings, showers and graduations with dishes including pulled pork, ribs, kettle beef, bacon-wrapped pork medallions, burgers, steaks and chicken.

Recently, his weekend order list -- written on an 18-inch length of butcher paper -- included prepared meat for two wedding receptions, one church dinner and five or six smaller get-togethers for 30 or 40 people. He also provided several hundred pounds of pork burgers to Saxon Lutheran Memorial for its annual daylong Fall Festival, which took place Saturday, and furnished the bacon and unseasoned pork sausage used in the festival's sausage-making demonstration.

Sausage is a mainstay of Schroeter's: bratwurst in a variety of seasonings; liverwurst, aka braunschweiger, a soft, spicy liver sausage; gritzwurst, a combination of ground pork and oatmeal; and boudin, a blend of ground pork and rice with Louisiana Cajun seasoning.

"It's famous down South," Schroeter said.

Some of the fare takes folks back to the days of regular backyard butchering: headcheese, a seasoned loaf made of head meat that sometimes includes the tongue and/or brains of a calf or pig and molded in the head's natural jelly; blood sausage, a dark sausage made with a high content of blood plus pork bits and seasonings; and hog heads and hog jowls.

Schroeter has his eye on the upcoming deer season, and said he'll likely take on a few more employees for the duration.

"We do it all. We skin them; we cut, wrap and freeze them -- steaks, roasts, hamburger, deer bologna. And when I make their sausage, they get their own sausage meat back," he said, explaining that other processors might blend one hunter's sausage meat with that of another.

In addition to the fresh meats available in the case display, the store's inventory includes a bit of everything, from everyday basics such as milk and bread to snack foods and condiments, pet food and paper products, auto supplies including motor oil and brake fluid and soda, beer, liquor and wine -- including varieties of local wineries. The shop is open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week.

The activity picks up even further on the third Saturday of the month, when Schroeter welcomes vendors, at no charge, for what he calls a rural flea market and yard sale. Past sales have included antiques and vintage items, auto parts, homemade baked goods, clothing, boats, tractors, furniture and "lots of collectible stuff," Schroeter said. The flea market runs March through November.

The combination butcher shop and grocery is something of a gathering place.

"It's someplace to go. They come in here and get some beer or something and their buddies come in here, and they come meet up and may sit outside and catch up," Schroeter said.

nhadler@semissourian.com

388-3630

Pertinent address:

2984 Route KK, Oak Ridge, Mo.