People swear by this Pierce County butcher shop. Have a look behind the counter
It was 10:55 a.m. on a Wednesday when a bearded man in a bright-orange T-shirt pulled on the door of Blue Max Meats. A few minutes later, Mapp Chhim turned toward the team of six or so employees and general manager Scott Johnson, some of whom have been on site since 5 am. 'Are we ready?'
After a joint 'Yep,' he turns the key. In less than a half-hour, several customers have already come and gone, and a few more await their requests:
Two pounds of trail mix, not the nutty kind, with hunks of Blue Max original beef jerky, torn pepperoni sticks, slices of smoked bratwurst, and cubes of cheese.
Twelve jerk-marinated chicken thighs, packed six and six.
Smoked pork chops. Ribeyes and New York strips of American wagyu, USDA Prime and Choice. Housemade sausages in 35 total varieties. Also housemade brown-sugar bacon. Lots and lots of jerky — the Hawaiian style is delightfully sweet and savory.
Everyone is greeted with a 'Hello, welcome in!' and asked, probably more than once if you're indecisive, if you've been helped. The employee behind the counter who starts to help you will keep helping you, all the way through checkout. They are friendly and patient and maybe it's a show, but darn if it doesn't seem like these folks like working here.
That sense of pride is precisely what led Tommy Marshall and Evan Greco to buy Blue Max Meats in 2013.
The local company has served Pierce County since 1994, and it all started on the corner of South 96th and Canyon roads in the Summit area. Then it was a modest shop on the other corner of the same building it calls home today. Until maybe the early 2000s, there was also a Blue Max in Lakewood and South Tacoma.
On the Wednesday before Memorial Day weekend, all but guaranteed to be busy, Marshall was dressed in Levi's and a maroon-and-cream checkered Oxford. Greco opted for shorts, high socks and a short-sleeved plaid button-down. Both were sporting aprons — one brown, one orange — as well as a ball cap. Along with their staff, the binding characteristic is a wooden clip-on bowtie, a throwback to butchers of yore.
The duo met about 15 years ago. Greco, then in his early 20s, had been laid off from a job as a metal worker when his mom suggested butchery. Some of their family in New York state had a history as U.S. Department of Agriculture meat inspectors, and he was raised on a micro-farm in the Puyallup area. They sold animals to the Washington State Fair, he said, and their Italian relatives here were prolific home cooks. He got a job at Blue Max.
'On the first day, I knew this was what I wanted to do,' Greco recalled.
With a burgeoning interest in the craft, he started making jerky at home. Armed with questions about how to cut a top-sirloin, he would frequent Summit Trading Co., the former supermarket a few blocks south on Canyon Road (now a Wilco Farm Store), where Marshall managed the meat department. Eventually Greco got a job there instead, and within a couple of years, the two were scheming how to open their own market.
They point to Greco's random discovery of an old tin-type photograph at a local antique store as 'the catalyst' for their decade-plus journey of beefy entrepreneurship. An enlarged version of it — probably a midcentury Piggly Wiggly meat counter — now hangs on the wall of both shops.
When they learned the Blue Max owner was closing, they inquired about buying some equipment and ended up buying the whole business.
'It was a big risk,' said Marshall last week. 'We didn't have any money, but we knew meat.'
Their shop would focus on quality, consistency, customer service and housemade goods wherever possible — dedication that appears to have paid off.
In 2014, they accidentally went viral when Greco decided to mix sausage and Skittles in honor of Seattle Seahawks star running back Marshawn Lynch, notoriously in love with the rainbow candy.
Greco, who admits it's too much even for him in one sitting on a bun, laughs about his Beast Mode Sausage now.
'I thought it would be funny as a joke, and the next day we had a line,' he said. 'I was making these sausages 14 hours a day.'
They kept it going as the Super Bowl Champion Seahawks returned to the big game the following year. You can still snag them — but only during football season.
That was a big moment, they reflected in May. In 2016 they expanded to Buckley, taking over the old Rose's IGA on State Route 410. In 2019, they moved the original Puyallup shop into Summit Pub's original home. Not only is it much bigger, allowing them to provide even more variety in the coolers (cheese, specialty cold cuts), freezers (wild game, seafood, locker packs of meat that didn't sell from the case yesterday) and dry goods (produce, spices, sauces, tools), they kept the first storefront to handle all the smoking and processing. Today, all those sausages, smoked pork chops and jerky galore comprise a full quarter of sales.
'The thing that sustains us is that we're unique,' said Marshall. 'We don't hang out in the low-quality, low-price zone — and we charge a fair price for it.'
Every morning, the fresh meat cases are stacked with fresh rows. Many steaks are sourced from Pacific Northwest producers, including Snake River Farms and Double R Ranch, as well as Canada's St. Helens Beef. They tear through some 300 pounds of ribeyes on a typical Saturday, they said, but if you're in search of advice for another cut: Ask the butcher.
They agreed the coulotte, a singular strip of muscle from the top sirloin, was perhaps the most underrated cut in the case. It can handle grilling, broiling and a reverse-sear. As it cooks, explained Marshall, 'it puffs up in the center,' almost like a roast, but it feels like a steak. Serve it rare, he advised.
'It's one cut that for the price is a crazy value,' he added.
Greco also highlighted the hanging tender (more commonly seen as just hangar steak, and in some parts of Europe 'onglet'), which he described as a 'thin piece that's super tender' with a 'kind of loose structure' that grills up beautifully with simple seasoning. His kids love it, too. To save time, he recommends 'The Smokin Wedgie,' a metal triangle that holds pellets to create a smoker-like situation out of any grill.
They see some customers several times a week, they said. Many, like Roy resident Dennis Seberson, go out of their way to stock up.
Seberson has been a customer 'since it's been here,' he told The News Tribune, holding a couple bags' worth of goods. While there are other meat shops and places to buy meat, none are 'as good as this one,' he said.
Seth and Emma McClanahan said their visit was a long time coming. Like Seberson, his dad gets his meat exclusively at Blue Max, but they had been shopping at Costco out of convenience. On this particular Wednesday morning, the retailer didn't have what they wanted.
More pointedly, said Emma, 'Everybody tells to come here!'
▪ Puyallup: 9502 Canyon Road E., Puyallup, 253-535-6110, bluemaxmeats.com
▪ Buckley: 29304 State Route 410, Buckley, 360-829-6520
▪ Monday-Saturday 11 a.m.-7 p.m.
▪ Details: locally owned and operated meat market and butcher shop with fresh cuts daily, friendly and knowledgeable service, plus everything you need for a grilling party
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