Debbie Parton, Owner and Dave Witton, Meat Cutter. |
While many women are trying to get out of the kitchen, Debbie Parton
is doing her best to get into one. The new proprietor and baker for
Parkersburg’s 19th Street Meat Market is building on a fresh
food tradition of over sixty years. Debbie wrestled with the idea
for weeks before making the decision to purchase the neighborhood
enterprise. She says, “I’ve always loved to cook and I
wanted to get into the food business.” Raised just three blocks
from the market, Debbie and her eight brothers and sisters have happy
memories of the former A-1 Market, as a shopping destination for their
mother and a stop for Popsicles on the way to the park. “This
seemed like the perfect opportunity for me - to start with a great
tradition and then build on it. The 19th Street Meat Market has always
had the best meat in town. Now we have fresh baked cakes, pies and
pastries, too.”
Debbie says their meat sales run about $100,000 each month. “We’ve
kept the same distributor. We cut and grind the meat ourselves; often
right in front of the customer, so they know it is fresh. We do a
lot of special cuts, for customers who really know meat or for someone
who just want to celebrate with a special dinner. As the bigger stores
go to more frozen meats and more prepackaged meats with more preservatives,
our business increases. People want freshness for flavor and for good
health. There’s a big difference in taste when meat is very
fresh.”
The neighborhood meat market, with its scuffed wood floors and old-fashioned
jar of picked eggs on the counter, is also a working woman’s
rescue center. The market offers a wide range of ready-to-bake-items,
like stuffed peppers, twice baked potatoes, ham loaf or generously
stuffed pork chops. Specialty salads, from the new cucumber salad
to traditional favorites like pineapple walnut or potato salad complete
the menu on the spot. The 19th Street Meat Market also offer carry
out deli sandwiches, cheeses, their signature chicken salads and hot
dog sauce along with four styles of chicken wings. “Dinner is
almost ready – with just one stop,” Debbie says.
In the months since she took ownership, Debbie has concentrated on
maintaining the products and practices that made the market a neighborhood
fixture for decades while taking advantage of her own baking skills.
“We still have the old favorites like apple dumpling with caramel
but now we have pineapple upside down cake, blueberry pie, red velvet
and strawberry cake.” New and long time loyal customers comes
in for the sweet berry pastries like bumbleberry tarts and razzleberry
pies, made with varieties of fresh berries. Debbie says they’re
happy to make almost every kind of pie on request, including crème
pies. “We just need a day or two’s notice.”
Renovations are being made slowly, since Debbie has no desire to
rearrange an old, familiar face, but she has added a new ceiling and
ceiling fans. She’s planning on enlarging the kitchen. “Now
that we cater food for parties and events, we need more space. And,
we’d like to become a full time bakery so we need extra room
for that.”
Staffing has been easier than she expected. Debbie’s sister
Catherine and her daughter Amy, work the counters along with the couple
that worked with the previous owners. Debbie advertised for a new
meat cutter on the Internet and Andy, in Alaska, answered the call.
After a thirty-year career in the city finance department, Debbie
Parton is busy making tasteful plans to attract a new generation of
lifelong customers. With fresh, custom cut meat, home baked desserts,
and freshly prepared entrées and side dishes, Debbie Parton’s
19th Street Meat Market is making friends and neighbors a long, long
way from the neighborhood.
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