Located in a small shop on Hastings Street between Madison and Rosser avenues, you’ll find Rocky’s Meats.
The original owner, Rocky, opened the Heights butcher shop back in 1961.
In 1999, Rocky was looking to retire and reached out to fellow butcher John Bevilacqua, who had his own store down the street. Rocky suggested John take over his meat shop. He agreed.
This fall Rocky’s is celebrating 55 years in the Heights. The NOW recently spoke to John, a Burnaby resident himself, about his business and his plans for the future.
Tell me a bit about the business.
Well, of course, as you know it started in 1961 by Rocky himself. … Rocky had it from 1961 until ’99, when he retired. I had my own shop on the 4700 block of Hastings.
I had my old shop on 4700 Hastings and we were friends, neighbours anyways, and he approached me and said he wanted to retire, and I wanted to move my location – so that’s what we did. He retired, and I moved into his location. I amalgamated mine with his and just kept his name though.
Why did you keep the name Rocky’s?
Rocky’s has been around so long people knew him. Mine, it was fairly new, the name, so I just decided to go with his because he was well known anyways, and I kept his name, but I incorporated it – like Rocky 2. So he was Rocky 1 and I was Rocky 2.
Describe your shop.
It’s an old-style butcher shop that we try and keep traditional. Basically it’s the old-fashioned butcher shop. I thrive on quality, service the old-fashioned way.
What kind of meat do you sell?
All my meat is from local suppliers, except my beef. My beef is Alberta beef, reason being I find it a little bit better than the B.C. beef and it’s grass fed and then finished off grain fed, and all my veal, lamb, poultry is all from the valley, from here. I get it from Johnson’s Packers – that’s my natural supplier. It’s all natural products. And all my poultry is from Maple Hills Farms and my turkey is from JD Farms out in Langley. So it’s all fresh, local stuff.
What’s a typical day like?
Usually I get up around 7 o’clock in the morning, get prepared and then I’m here just before nine depending on what kind of day I’m going to have. If it’s a busy day, of course I’m here early – sometimes I’m here five or six in the morning. Usually I’m here around nine and I try and get out of here by 5:30 p.m.
So you come in and start prepping the meat?
Yup, yup. I start setting up the counter and every day I start from one end and work down and make sure everything is done properly, is sanitized and clean and fresh.
What are customers looking for when they come to your shop?
For the knowledge. They come in if they’re looking for a certain type of recipe that they have or they’re not sure what type of meat to get for it, they come and ask, and I get it for them. We get together and decide what they need.
What’s your most popular meat?
Summertime our beef sales are very good, we sell a lot of steaks because they’re well-aged steaks, and then our in-store made Italian sausages that we sell. I make them daily here, and we’re well known for our sausages. … They’re all natural, no fillers or binders, they’re gluten-free, even the casings are natural.
Are you open seven days a week?
No. I used to open six days a week, then when my granddaughter was born a year-and-a-half ago I decided to close Mondays. So I am closed Sundays and Mondays.
How did you end up in the butcher business?
Oh, I started when I was 14 years old as an after-school-type job, and I stayed with it. I would go in after school and ride my bike there at First and Commercial – Grandview Meats – it’s no longer there, but that’s where I started. Then when I graduated from high school I decided to stay with it and I worked for Safeway for 17 years; I was the meat manager there, and I left in ’93 and I opened up my own shop, and then I took over Rocky’s Meats from ’99. So this is the only job I’ve known and had – my career.
If you hadn’t become a butcher, what would you have done?
I would have been a police officer. I like the police department.
Do you have any pet peeves when it comes to the meat business?
Not really. … But if you get something off the internet, it depends what site and if it’s a recipe and a certain cut of meat, it could be American, it could be Australian, it could be European, and they have different names, but when I look at it and read I can figure out what it is. But other than that, no, nothing.
So it’s kind of like an investigation?
Sometimes, yup.
So what’s your plan for Rocky’s Meats?
Oh I guess I’ll keep going until I retire.
Will that be soon?
No, no I still got a good 10 years to go; then I’ll pack it in.
Anything else you wanted to say?
Well, the traditional butcher shop, there’s not many around anymore – like this type. There’s a few that are starting to come back, but there for a while they dwindled off and a lot of people were into prepared foods like marinated-type foods. To get fresh quality, you still have to go to a local butcher who knows his cuts and where the product’s from and knows the business. Sometimes you’ll go to places and you’ll ask the butcher or somebody behind the meat counter and they look at you like, ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’ It’s a career, the meat trade, for me that I already enjoyed and it’s very rewarding for me. Every day I come in and I enjoy coming to work.
