Castle Meats

We are new to the pig raising life and we found Castle Meats, owned and operated by Jethro who just purchased the business. We spoke with Jethro who was more than helpful and was extremely polite on the phone. Our meat was all sealed and labeled properly. It was all exactly as he said. The shop was very clean! No credit cards, but $ is fine by us. Prices are fair for the market, plus we like fresh.
Jethro will get our business from now on, and he also has other meats to purchase inside his shop. Thanks Jethro!
Johnson family

I guess I am the first person to review this place and I am truly hopeful that others may be able to share better experiences. Per a recommendation from a friend (who I guess hadn’t used them in a while) we had two of our heritage breed Guinea Hogs butchered there. Now, I will admit — I was a but of a hard customer, I called twice to change my cuts prior to the actual butchering, but I feel like in the end I was pretty explicit about my expectations. Each time I called, I Kevin (Castle) the owner seemed to be a little short, like taking time to talk to me was putting a huge hang up in his day, I was a paying customer, and when your talking about butchering, I would have thought taking the time to talk to your customers would come along with the business.
Here is where the big problems start though, when I picked up the meat — some of it was not properly frozen. He knew it because he felt a few packages and realized they weren’t thoroughly frozen either. This is not good food safety, the meat should be sub-​0 frozen before it leaves their facility.
Next, I had specifically asked for a whole rear leg, with the aitch bone removed, so I could try curing a whole salt cured, air dried ham. Instead, he boned out completely two front shoulders, and cut all the legs in half — then when I picked up, argued with me and told him that is what I said. I definately know it’s not what I said — because I can not complete the project I wanted with the product he gave me.
I tried to engage in a quick discussion about curing meat (this is specifically what the guinea hog is known for), and he had NO idea what I was talking about, I would have thought at least a general knowledge of the basics would come with this job too. He actually tried to discourage me, because «it’s a really long process» and «he hoped I knew what I was doing» — way to get me excited bro!
All in all, I was unimpressed, since they DONT HAVE A CREDIT CARD MACHINE and I had paid cash before I ever saw my meat, and then his argumentative nature regarding the bad cutting, I figured instead of calling to argue more (to what ends, I doubt he would give me anything back) I would just find a new, knowledgeable butcher next time, and share our bad experience as a warning to others.
Two stars for looking pretty clean in the actual cutting room, and throwing in a small bag of pork fat gratis.