Vegan Butcher Takes Over Meat and Cheese Shop

Berkeley, CA-based vegan delicatessen The Butcher’s Son will expand into a substantially larger space in the coming weeks. The vegan shop will move into the recently shuttered storefront of Maker’s Common, a restaurant owned by the founders of popular San Francisco grilled-cheese restaurant Mission Cheese. Peter Fikaris, who founded The Butcher’s Son in 2016 with his sister Christina Stobing, told VegNews that the expansion was necessary because the shop could no longer support the crowds that frequented it daily. “We really don’t have a choice,” Fikaris said. “We’re running the place into the ground, it wasn’t built for the volume we do, and we receive complaints, sometimes daily, about the lack of seating, the long lines, blocking of the sidewalks, blocking neighboring businesses, and we just keep getting busier.” The team will use the original space as a production kitchen where their meat and cheese smoker will be used to make “meatier” products such as salami, sausages, pastrami, and bologna. The new space—which seats 47 inside and approximately 100 outside—will be divided into two sections. The restaurant side will serve an expanded menu, along with beer and wine, while the market and bakery side will offer take-and-bake items such as chicken pot pie, lasagna, casseroles, cheesy scalloped potatoes, pizzas, garlic parmesan breads, products from local vegan brands, and housemade items such as fruit pies, cookie dough, a line of dressings, meats, cheeses, soups, and salads—including a particular item that Fikaris cherishes. “I’ve been dreaming of a Smoked Whitefish Salad Sandwich on the menu since the day we opened,” Fikaris said. “It may not sound all that exciting to most people, but it’s just one of those things that in my mind when we finally serve it, I’ll feel like The Butcher’s Son is officially open for business.”