Pat LaFrieda’s name is found on menus of top restaurants all around the city even though the Brooklyn native is neither chef nor restaurateur.
Rather, the 41-year-old is the third-generation owner of his family’s meat-purveyor business, Pat LaFrieda & Sons, which he runs with dad Pat, Sr., and cousin Mark Pastore. Everyday, the company delivers their famed dry-aged steaks and secret burger blends, among other meaty goods, to 800 locations around the Tri-State Area, Chicago, Las Vegas, Ohio, Washington, DC and Miami. And their client roster would make anyone’s mouth water: Minetta Tavern, Babbo and Shake Shack, just to name a few.
LaFrieda’s 15-hour work days are as long and as they are varied. They can involve anything from meeting clients in the wee hours after their restaurants close, administrative duties, running a test kitchen in his office, fixing sudden mechanical failures at 3 a.m. and hours of actual butchering in near-freezing temperatures.
Despite the arduous nature of the work, LaFrieda says he fell in love with the family business while tagging along on the meat deliveries as a kid. “I loved being with renowned chefs in their kitchens as they started their days,” he recalls. “It was fascinating to be part of what was going to be dinner that night.
He talked with us about his fulfilling, and filling, job:
What’s your earliest memory of the business?
I remember the smell of my father’s cigarettes in the car in the morning, driving from Brooklyn into Manhattan. Seeing the hustle of Manhattan, seeing all these men butchering meat, getting orders.
Did your dad want you to go into the family business?
No. He told me that there were only “pennies to rub together” if I stayed in it. He didn’t feel that he had invested all this money in our education to stay in the meat company. But the finance and marketing skills I learned in school translated into our family business, so it wasn’t a waste.
Did you ever do anything else with your finance background?
I worked on Wall Street for almost a year, and I truly disliked it. Have you seen the movie “Boiler Room”? I could feel the company I was working for was up to no good. When I smelled smoke, I went to see my dad and was working for him the next day.
What makes you love your job so much?
I think the last few days summed it up. Harold Dieterle is opening up a restaurant called the Marrow. I worked with him on every one of the proteins. Michael White is about to open an Italian steakhouse, and we’re about to go through all the steaks on his menu. John Fraser from DoveTail is opening a new restaurant inside the new Standard Hotel, and I’ve been working with him on his menu every night. It’s not just restaurants calling us up asking for specific cuts — they’re asking us for what cuts they should use. I’m trying to figure what steaks would best fit their dishes. So the bigger picture is my vision and my cooking make it to New York City’s best restaurants because I go above and beyond in a personal basis, with each one, cultivating and articulating what those menus should be, what steaks should be on it and what shouldn’t.
How much meat do you consume on an average day?
At least two pounds a day. Half of that raw. The fastest way to taste if a steak or burger blend is going to be tender or flavorful is just to cut a piece of meat. Forget about cooking it because it can obscure the flavor s.
Do any of your kids want to join the family business?
I put my oldest, Patrick IV — he’s eight — up on a milk crate where I stand all night with gloves and a coat in the cold, to see what his father does all night, and he loved it. It scares me because when my dad did that to me, I loved it.
You never considered opening a restaurant?
We work a really hard job as it is, and restaurants have just as hard of a job as we do. Also, we never wanted to compete with our customers. It’s something my grandfather always said to us, “We’re butchers, stay butchers, but do it better everyday.”