Tom & Nick’s Meat Market

Sadly, this store is nothing how the old owners Bill and Otto Polacek operated it back in the day. I went on Monday (10÷5÷15) at 12:30 PM and the store was closed (odd because they have Monday listed as being open). OK things happen — went back today (10÷9÷15) and the store could have been closed because after standing ten minutes (with the store empty of any customers and nobody to wait on me) I left. Not much in the showcases, and not displayed attractively. Mostly smoked meat or dry sausage. No fresh meats in sight. This poor place looks like it is operating on life support. The end can’t be far off. Perhaps they have a large wholesale business and/​or clients that order through the internet. Coming from a family run meat market that operated for 60+ years I know this is not an easy business, but the effort here would be: fail. This is a cute store and looks very clean, but was a disappointment. Good luck!

I thought that this would be a regular butcher shop… it is not. They had some meat that I did not recognize and some that I did. None of it looked fresh. We walked in, and after looking around, walked out. Quite disappointing.

I was here visiting from CA and in search of klobasy (crème sausage). Drove all over and in & out of many butchers, delis & grocery stores. Luckily my Dad (home in CA) found this review of Tom & Nicks and I called them… and they had it! OMG it is amazing! SOOOOOOOOOOOO happy I found it, and now have two big wheels coming home to CA with me :)!! The owners were SO nice and said they will be doing shipping soon! MUSIC to my ears! Cheaper than flying out & getting it, although not as quaint! Thank you Tom & Nicks for making my vacation complete!

This is a pure fandom review. They make their own Buchta on Saturdays!!! If you’re not Bohemian or some other flavor of Czech, Buchta is a sort of meat loaf – probably a fair amount of veal, god knows what else (this is a culture that informally calls its most notorious blood sausage a «Bohemian banana» or «black jet» and distinctive level of spicing. It’s really good. They also have Bohemian cream sausage and a variety of other sausages and things they smoke themselves, and they say they do roasts, too. I came by on a Tuesday and they still had a couple of buchtas left. The guy behind the counter said the Berwyn Fire Department also stops by for an order on weekends.
Now for the nostalgia, and why I was so happy to stop be there the other day. My mother and my grandparents before me always bought their meat here. Probably my family patronage goes back as far as the 1940s, or maybe even farther back. I don’t live anywhere near Tom & Nick’s, but last time I was in the area and walked by, they appeared closed. I just assumed they had gone the way of so many old Czech businesses, my family’s included. I was in the area again and noticed Tom & Nick’s had some Czech signage in the window that made me think they might actually be open. It turns out that it is under new ownership, but one of the old owners still comes by and helps out – so they are still using some serious age-​old recipes.
It’s hard to describe how wonderful it was to get a favorite taste of my childhood and culture again.
The shop also has sort of a hodgepodge mix of European and Mexican package goods too, including things like Modelo beer, so I’m hoping they have enough variety to do well and stick around.