A Look Inside: Rump’s Butcher Shoppe

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) - Beef, pork, veal, lamb, elk, buffalo. Sounds like an all-star line-up for meat lovers and you can find all of these delights right here in the Chippewa Valley. The story of how a Chippewa Falls native took his love of “sausage-making” and created an old-fashioned butcher shoppe with one simple goal: provide high-quality meat.

“We were striving to not cut any corners, that is a decision early on, we were just going to make quality product no matter what.”

For nearly eight years that’s been the meal ticket for Bob Adrian.

“Everything we do is right here, they’re packaging brats right now in the back.”

Adrian, owner of Rump’s Butcher Shoppe in Altoona, along with general manager and head butcher Dan Horlacher.

“Dan is making our famous snack sticks, but it probably turned out being the best selling thing that we probably make.”

Rump’s has more than 240 selections to satisfy the cravings of customers in the Chippewa Valley.

“If you make sausage for a living, you’re really like an artist. You want to try other stuff, other things sound good to you, or even customers suggest things to you. So you start concocting some new formulas up and you send it to the state, hey is this okay can we do this, can we call it this? And then they give us the green light,” says Adrian.

When you walk through the front door, you know you are in meat-lovers country. Just beyond the display cases you’ll find meat-cutting equipment out in the open ready for butchers to showcase all that Rump’s has to offer.

“What separates us the most is that we start with really, really quality meat, quality ingredients and the skill set of some of the guys here are decades of experience. Making sausage is really a science. Anyone can grind up some meat....”

When you buy beef from Rump’s, Adrian says you’re not just getting ‘some meat’, stressing everything in the shoppe is top quality.

“We have a real stringent spec, there’s only a couple of companies in the country that meet the spec that we want.... . So everything is upper two-thirds choice so is probably the highest grade you see, USDA prime usually goes to all the high-end restaurants so there’s only about 3% cattle that make high-end grade, so upper two-thirds choice is the next available and that’s what we carry here,” explains Adrian.

A key to Rump’s success is building partnerships locally. A growing wholesale business with restaurants, grocers, and other food distributors.

“And Woodman’s is our largest wholesale account, but then Sammy’s pizza, Draganetti’s, Za51, Blue Marble in Chippewa Falls, Hanger 54 and La Grander’s, we obviously buy cheese from them and they buy snack sticks from us... As many products that we can source locally is what we do and as many relationships that we can build with other local companies we do that as well.”

Proud to call the city of Altoona home, Rump’s has become a destination for families during the holidays. A badge of honor that Adrian wears with pride.

We take pride in that Thanksgiving we have fresh, local-raised turkeys and we make our own hams from start to finish.... You really become humble with it and you realize that you’re part of these people’s family traditions now. And that means a lot to us, it really does.”

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