About the shop
Locally owned in Waterboro, by butchers with more than twenty years' experience
Perry Butcher Co. is a locally owned butcher shop in Waterboro, Maine, owned and operated by Aaron Perry and Miranda Perry. There is not much mystery to what happens here. People bring animals they own and get them back as meat they can actually use. People who do not have an animal buy into one. And because a lot of Maine lives closer to a butcher counter than to a working waterfront, the shop also carries fresh Maine lobster, picked lobster meat and steamer clams.
What twenty years actually buys you
Experience in this trade does not show up as speed. It shows up as fewer surprises. Knowing that a customer who wrote “thick” on a cut sheet means something different from the last person who wrote it. Knowing which requests are going to disappoint someone once they open the freezer in February, and saying so at the counter rather than letting it happen.
It also shows up in keeping orders straight. One animal turns into a great many labeled packages, and every one of them belongs to a specific household. Getting that right, every time, is most of the job.
What the shop does today
Three things, and they overlap more than you might expect. Customers who bring in a beef in the autumn often come back for lobster in July.
Custom-exempt processing
Beef and pork that customers already own, cut to the sheet they filled in and marked not for sale, as Maine requires.
Beef and pork shares
For people who want a freezer filled properly without raising the animal themselves. Ownership is arranged before slaughter.
Fresh Maine seafood
Lobster live or steamed, picked lobster meat, and steamer clams — inland, and without the day trip.
Where the shop stands
York County, inland from the coast
Waterboro is farm country and lake country at the same time, which is roughly the mix of customers who come through — people with animals to process, people filling a chest freezer, and people who want lobster on a Friday without driving an hour each way to get it.
The counter is open Wednesday to Sunday. Processing dates, share availability and what seafood is in all move week to week, so a short conversation will tell you more than any page here can.
