New Astoria Butcher Shop Brings Focus On Local Meats

ASTORIA, QUEENS — As a child, working inside his uncle's halal butcher shop in Jamaica, Queens, Abou Sow never questioned the fact that he knew where the meat came from.

"We normally go directly to a farmer or a slaughterhouse or a butcher to get the meat that we eat," said Sow, 26, whose family hails from Senegal. Unlike in American culture, grocery stores play only a minor role for many West African families like Sow's, who used them only to shop for "starches and vegetables," he said.

But as Sow grew older, he realized that his friends lacked the same personal stake in the food they ate, giving him new insight into his own family's business. In his early twenties, Sow started cultivating relationships with the farmers and ranchers who supplied the animals for his uncle's shop to butcher.

"Grocery stores have no real story," Sow explained. "If there’s no story or connection to the food that you’re eating, you won’t have an appreciation for it."

By the start of 2020, Sow had opened his own online business, Prince Abou's Butchery, processing and delivering fresh meats from a small facility in an Astoria start-up space. (The name was no marketing ploy: in 2015, Sow's father was crowned head chief of his home village in Senegal, Njafaan Beeli Cinndi, making Abou bona fide royalty as his eldest son.)

When the COVID-19 pandemic wrought havoc on meatpacking plants and disrupted the industrial food chain, Sow's farm-centered model proved adaptable, as small farmers began contacting Sow directly to get their livestock processed. Meanwhile, Prince Abou's Butchery had outgrown its Astoria space, so Sow began looking for a brick-and-mortar location.

After searching all over Queens, the vacant storefront at 32-88 Steinway St. "kind of fell into my lap," he said. Supply-chain issues and construction problems pushed the opening date back months, but Sow has been busy all the while, designing the space with the help of a branding consultant.

Finally, starting around noon Saturday, Prince Abou's Butchery will host a soft opening at the Steinway Street storefront, which is just north of 34th Avenue. Partnering with Eli Goldman, the mission-driven pitmaster behind Tikkun BBQ, Sow will give away 400 free cheeseburgers and "loads of barbecue chicken" to anyone who stops by Saturday afternoon.

The shop's full opening will follow later this month.

Once it's open, visitors to Prince Abou's can expect to find "a butcher shop that has been owned and operated by a person in their twenties," Sow said — citing the aesthetic, decor, language, music and more. But the high-quality local meats, of course, will be paramount.

"The fact that I’m connecting the farmer to the butcher and the butcher to the consumer, I'm creating a story and a connection for the consumer to have," he said.

Read more about Prince Abou's Butchery on its website or Instagram.