The Butcherie

The Butcherie may not be perfect, may not have every item, but it is without question a true treasure for the Brookline Jewish community. Josh Gellerman is a true mensch and makes sure his customers are happy and find what they need.

Very cool Kosher grocery store. A little of this and that. Some pre made treats, a nice deli section and tons of cool candy, Matzo products and way more.

The place to go to if you want an obscure Jewish item. We go for the «Boston» knishes that aren’t available anywhere else on earth, as far as we can find. They’re okay. I probably wouldn’t buy them if there were no sentimental attachments for me to my childhood.
This is the place my grandmothers would send me to fetch the unusual or kosher stuff for their meals.
Cashiers gruff and unfriendly. Once they gave me a hard time for not speaking hebrew. Oy vey.

The Butcherie is my favorite store in the boston area. This «little» store has so many great things to offer that you can’t find anywhere else, including great prepared foods, handcut lox, deli, and the best kosher meat I’ve ever had. The store is much cleaner than when I started shopping here years ago, and the customer attention is better than any supermarket I’ve shopped at, they really take care of you…
thank you butcherie!

Still lovin’ it! I’ve gone here about once a month for half a year now and it’s really a great little store in the heart of brookline.

I have been going here for years, because they are near where I live and they have an ok selection of food… however, I can only give this place 2 stars because the staff is constantly rude.
Its come to the point where I have decided I would rather get crappier food than being treated like crap every time I walk into this place. I always go out of my way to be pleasant, yet unlike most places in the area, they just don’t respond to civility.
Goodbye Butcherie, I really do hope you guys change your tune.

So, the Butcherie.
They are the only game in town, but man I can’t help but feel jealous when I go to Baltimore and see Seven Mile, a real supermarket that is completely kosher.
I like the dry goods section, as there are many things one cannot get at any other markets in the region. It’s the meat section that drives me bonkers. The red meat tends to be a bit chewy and over-​salted. I don’t know if they transport it in, and it doesn’t keep as well but I’ve had significantly better luck with mail-​away kosher meats. Their poultry tends to be high-​quality.
Short story is they’re the only game in town, and they do a decent job of it, but still not a fan of their red meats.

The fresh deli food is excellent — especially the chopped chicken liver, which is amazing — and the deli prices are pretty reasonable. (I didn’t notice the prices on pre-​packaged grocery items.) The reason I gave the store only 3 stars is because I noted the same unfriendliness that other reviewers have commented upon. When I was at the check-​out counter, I said to the woman ringing up my items something like «This place is great! I have to come back real soon» and there was just dead silence. No reply. No smile. She didn’t have to be chatty or falsely sweet — just a smile or «thank you» would have made a world of difference in terms of cultivating a new customer. Maybe they’re already so successful that they don’t need more business?

I went to this store looking for Sesame seed Halva, and I am glad I came here. It’s not the best Halva I have had, but it’s still comparable. The best one I had was in a Turkish bakery in Atlanta and even they no longer make it.
The thing I like the most is they make it fresh and in different flavors. Chocolate, Vanilla, Marble and with nuts. What more can you want! If you are a Halva fan and have a craving definitely give it a shot, am sure you are going to love it. I even shipped some Halva to my fiancé in Canada. He still loved it and found it fresh :)

They have items you can’t get anywhere else. However, and it’s a big however, the staff there must have had training from the Wicked witch of the West. I’ve never encountered so miserable a group of unfriendly, nasty people in one store at the same time. I only go there when there is absolutely no option to get the item anywhere else.

Being a born-​and-​bred Brooklynite, and a Yankees fan, anything pertaining to Boston automatically carries a negative connotation to me. However, life has had an interesting way of bringing me into Boston at two occasions in my life, and both times in Boston, I had the opportunity to not only stop in here, but also to peruse all of the offerings at The Butcherie.
While we have dozens of kosher stores in Brooklyn, where one can find everything from parve cheese doodles, to cholov yisroel cappuccino beverages, kosher Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme, to glatt kosher kibbeh and vegan dim sum, acheinu bnei yisrael living in New England lack these options. The Butcherie is their lifeline to Jewish observance, as it is the only kosher market in the region, and its selection and quality impress even this jaded New Yorker; deli, wines, cheeses, frozen foods, plenty of Israeli imports, and many other kosher specialties.
I find that the Butcherie’s prepared foods are excellent and the quality is superb and prices not outrageous for an out-​of-​town establishment. My one and only complaint is that their hours are not friendly to tourists or night owls, but that seems to be a trend in Boston, regardless (the city is dead at 9 pm, whereas NYC is bustling ²⁴⁄₇).
I have had the opportunity to sample several of their specialties, including the New England favorite, American Chop Suey; this concoction of chopped meat, tomatoes, and elbow macaroni bears no resemblance to the Chinese original, but the Butcherie’s version, I’m sure, presents this dish in its fullest simplicity and allows us kosher keepers to sample regional offerings we wouldn’t otherwise have access to.
The parve cheese noodle kugel reminds me of my own version of this dish (one can tell that they’ve used quality parve sour cream, cream cheese, and margarine in making this dish as close to its dairy counterpart as possible), the chunky chicken soup is as heimish as can be (although it requires salt), and the knishes are all scrumptious, with a flaky dough; the beef knishes (both American and Jerusalem) and the spinach and cheese knish are excellent (At separate meals, of course!) and they rival many of the knishes we have in Brooklyn.
Likewise, their parve cheese blintzes are excellent, and the other prepared foods available are mind-​boggling. The variety of prepared foods is astounding, and I’ve sampled the following: Parve tofu balls taste very close to their fleshig cousins, the beef pot pie is a true mechaye, treat, and the veal cutlets and patties are to die for.
Their Passover menu looks absolutely impressive, and perhaps a day trip to Boston may be in order before Pesach to sample these offerings, including chicken pot pie, chicken cacciatore, kreplach, couscous, veal patties, and other delights none of the Pesach stores in Brooklyn carry.

The Butcherie is a smallish-​medium Israeli food store with a good selection of meat, shelf stable food, condiments, and candy. What’s good is their nice prepared foods section near the back which has a really good assortment of stuff like knishes and rugallah. What I really enjoy is their fresh stuffed grape leaves which are delicious and cheaper than the canned stuff I have found everywhere else. With that said, please do not buy all the stuffed grape leaves and leave some for me!

Though I’ve known about The Butcherie for years, I never thought to go in. I figured that the shop would sell mainly meat (which I don’t eat.) A co-​worker recently told me that it did sell other products, so I decided to check it out.
For vegans, this place is awesome! There’s a good selection of packaged foods and frozen items. The prices aren’t too bad when compared to Shaw’s/Star Market (some items are even cheaper here) and the selection is interesting.
Due to kosher restrictions on dairy, there are many items that are «accidentally vegan.» Case in point– I came home with M&M’s, white chocolate chips, pre-​made miniature tart shells, and three types of whipped cream– all vegan.
They carry some fun fake meat products, vegan cheeses, candy galore, and a wide variety of convenience foods (from vegan chicken ramen to to fancy heat & eat appetizers to frozen dinners.)
For the non-​vegan folk, they seem to have a decent selection of cheese.

I have never encountered such rude people. I was so excited to give these guys my business, and when I called they told me that they were too busy to do everyone’s personal shopping for them. My request was 1) how much are 4 – 5 lb chickens, to which I got the answer «we don’t give prices over the phone.» Then I asked if I could order chickens ahead of time to make sure they’ll have them around the holiday. They said «we wont run out. we are too busy with catering and cooking to do everyone’s personal shopping for them.» Real nice! Wasn’t asking you to do sh*t but order a chicken! Go to the MeatHouse instead. Jerks!

The new home of Myers Boston knishes! If you remember the small Boston-​style oblong yellow meat knishes previously made by Myers Kosher Kitchen and sold all over the Boston area, and have missed them since they went out of business, then take a trip to The Butcherie.
They purchased the original Myers recipe, and are now producing them. They taste EXACTLY like they used to! I grew up eating these and used to get them from our local grocery store. I thought that wonderful taste had disappeared forever. If you haven’t had them, they are delicious!

Expensive. 15 $ worth of jacnun, borekas, melawa. cost you 70 $ in this overpriced racket. They are making a fortune on profit. Sad that this is one of the only places where you can find israeli food.

Stopped in for a quick pick up of an essential ingredient for a dish underway back at the homestead.
As I was walking through the aisles, I glanced at some of the items to familiarize myself with what they were offering. And yikes… the prices were astounding. For sure, there is definitely a mark-​up. Can’t speak to the value as I went for a prepackaged item, but I would definitely consider looking elsewhere if it meant saving several shekels.
Oh, and the cashiers are there to do their job; nothing more. That said, a ‘hello’ or any greeting would have been nice.

Do NOT visit this place on a Friday morning or immediately prior to a Jewish holiday (particularly Passover) or you will walk away shell-​shocked, overwhelmed, and empty handed.
Now, with that said, this place offers an extensive array of kosher foods (prepared, packaged, ingredients, etc.) including a full deli/​meat case. The prices are pretty exorbitant which on one hand is to be expected (foods that have to be koshered, like meat, just cost more — it’s a fact of life) but in other cases seems a bit unfair/​extreme (I can get a package of kosher-​for-​Passover certified Streit’s Matzoh Ball Soup mix at the Shaw’s on Comm Ave for $ 1, but it’s almost $ 3 at the Butcherie?!).
So, if you’re in need of a particular kosher meat item, a specialty Israeli food, or something ethnically «Jewish» that you can’t find elsewhere (such as prepared kosher food), this is a good place to go. HOWEVER so many packaged food items these days are Kosher certified (by OK, OU, or Star K) and can be found at the Shaw’s on Commonwealth Avenue, which has 3 shelves of Kosher items, including a meat case and freezer case.

Let’s talk about knishes.
The Butcherie’s offerings are the apotheosis: small, flavorful, savory, perfectly proportioned. NY’s commercially made knishes are, by comparison, a grotesque joke. I feel terrible that tourists think they exemplify Jewish food.
I moved away decades ago, but I still make an annual pilgrimage to the Butcherie to buy as many packages of their mini knishes as my cooler will hold. They are in the cold case of (mostly heavy but delicious) prepared foods near the back counter, a huge variety, some more successful than others. I’d say the traditional beef are the best, the more experimental vegetable varieties an acquired taste.
Oh, right, the Butcherie sells other things. Israeli candy is an especially strong suit, including the elusive «Popping Chocolate» that Elite almost never exports. Lots of Israeli and domestic canned and packaged goods, all of them kosher, obviously. There’s a small wine section, so poorly placed that I wonder if anyone has ever succeeded in buying anything from it. Good but expensive meat and poultry. Baked goods are ok.
Yes, coming here the week before Passover is a nightmare, although frankly not much different from your average Sunday afternoon. But the Butcherie transcends its tightly packed, style-​free interior with knish perfection, plus the occasional, unexpected sweetness of its dour-​looking Russian cashiers.

If you miss the old county, and want to elbow your way to a challah, this is the place to go. Its not only for Jews, its a grocery store, but being Jewish will help you appreciate everything this store has. The fact that it HAS all of my childhood staples and favorite products which I cannot find at other stores, and the fact that they are all in ONE place is what makes this store amazing.
By the way challahs are amazing. Pretty much everything in this store is. The meat selection is great. So is the bakery/​bread section. The everyday staples are a bit overpriced, but hey, Im not there to buy canned corn. Smoked salmon is to die for.
Love it!
Dont forget they are closed on Fri evenings and Saturdays. If you are an gentile, avoid it on Fri mornings and before any major Jewish holiday.