The team
Glanmor Rees opened the shop in 1962 with a bicycle and a round of the Pontcanna streets; his son Huw has been behind the counter since he was fourteen and owns it now; Beca Lewis came from a farm above Cowbridge and runs the back room and the cabinet; Dai does Saturdays and the deliveries. Between them they have cut most of the beef in Pontcanna.
Owner and butcher. The beef, the farms, the van, the Christmas book
Son of Glanmor, who opened the shop in 1962; behind the counter since he was fourteen and the owner since 1998. Buys the beef and visits the farms, drives the van before the shop opens, and keeps the Christmas book in the same ledger his father used. Will tell you which cut and will not sell you the dearer one if the cheaper one is better for the dish.
Head butcher. The cabinet, the sausages, the pies, the knife work
Came from a farm above Cowbridge, trained at the college in Llandaff and at a shop in Abergavenny, and joined in 2017; head butcher since 2021 and the reason the dry-ageing cabinet exists. Runs the back room from six, wrote the pie recipes, and cuts most of the steaks. Teaches a butchery evening twice a year that sells out in a day.
The rest of us, and the paperwork
Started as the Saturday lad in 2019 at sixteen, now at the college in Llandaff three days a week and here the other three. Drives the afternoon deliveries, makes the burgers on Friday, and is the reason the queue on Saturday morning moves. Will be a butcher; we are making sure of it.
One refrigerated van, out at half past six, six mornings a week, to about twenty kitchens, back for nine to unload the counter, out again on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons for the home deliveries. Temperature-logged every drop. Huw drives the mornings, Dai the afternoons.
Food hygiene rated five since the scheme began; PGI Welsh Beef and Welsh Lamb licensed; members of the Guild of Q Butchers; every carcass traceable to the farm and the animal, and we will show you the passport if you ask. Dry-cured bacon and gammon made under our own approval.
A butcher's margin is about a third and most of that is wages and the cold room. We buy whole animals, so the steak pays for the shin and the shin has to sell; that is why the cheap cuts are priced to go and why nothing is thrown away.
Number forty-one
Glanmor Rees took the lease in the spring of 1962 on what had been a dairy, kept the tiles and the marble, and did a round of Pontcanna on a bicycle with a basket until the first van in 1971. The red front is the colour he painted it the first week and we have never seen a reason to change it. The cabinet in the window went in in 2021 where the dairy's churn rack had been; the block in the back room is the original, planed down three times.
Finding the shopPick the cut, say the weight, and the order page tells you the price before you ring. In by Friday noon and the joint is cut, wrapped and under your name on Saturday morning. Delivery within four miles on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.