by Karl Gregg | As they’ve heard about our new venture, a lot of people have asked: “who is Big Lou?” Is he a fictional character? An employee? Our butcher? I thought I’d take a few minutes to tell you just who Big Lou is.

I grew up in Sechelt and from the time I was able to work – I think it was 14 or 15 – I worked in kitchens dishwashing, cooking and such. Then on my time off I spent a lot of time around my friends who had cars!!!

One of my best friends since I was around 7 was Louis Jr. and we spent a lot of time in and out of his Dad’s grocery store and butcher shop. This is where I was first introduced to some butcher shop routines, like the bandsaw use, sausage stuffing, grinding, etc. When I started cooking, I got a bit more interested in the butchery process and asked more questions as time went on…

Big Lou was Louis Jr.’s dad. He’s a great guy who is also an amazing butcher and sausage maker. He always sourced the best products he could, he would pay his suppliers a bit more for better products and then used them to make and cut better products than anyone else in town. He had grown up in North Vancouver and worked in butcher shops around the lower Mainland before heading over to Sechelt to opene his grocery store and butcher shop.

If you’re lucky when you’re growing up you find mentors or people who take interest in you—maybe they see something in your youthful exhuberence that they want to help you with. Louis was one of these people for me. I spent a lot of time in his shops: both the butcher shop and his home autobody shop–he builds great hot rods as well! I spent a lot of hours sanding cars and helping around the shop.

He helped Allan and I a lot on this butcher shop in the beginning stages of design and development of the space. His understanding of the process really helped us to make the most of the awesome space we found to open the shop. He’ll be there before we open to give us more advice, and I couldn’t be happier about that. I learned a lot from him–about everything under the sun, and I felt it was only right to honour him a bit by naming our butcher shop after him.

So, who is Big Lou? He’s a mentor, a friend, and a great butcher who set a standard that we’re going to strive to meet every day when we open the shop.

Never stop learning or teaching and you will always be successful.

Hope to see you at the Big Lou’s soon,

Karl Gregg

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