Most Vancouver butcher shops can count their history in just years.
This one is counting in decades.
Windsor Meats is hitting 80 years in business this year, and they’re saying thank you to their community with a Monthly Customer Appreciation Day that regulars and new customers can enjoy.
The shop opened in 1946, founded by a butcher named George Freeman.
Ownership has changed hands a few times since then, but the operating principle has not: source good meat, prepare it properly, and treat the people walking through the door like neighbours.
That run has produced a long, quiet list of milestones that never really show up online.
Eighty years of Sunday dinners.
Eighty years of weekend barbecues.
Eighty years of holiday roasts and quiet weeknight meals around the table.
“This 80-year milestone was not only achieved through the quality food we offer, but on the countless moments our loyal customers have shared around the table,” says Owner Shira Miller.
To say thanks for the run, Windsor Meats has rolled out a Monthly Customer Appreciation Day.
The first Tuesday of every month, you get 15% off everything in store, at all four locations.
The next one is landing on June 2nd.
That covers what they’re best known for, including AAA, Canada Prime, and Certified Angus Beef cuts (a tier you don’t usually see at a neighbourhood shop), plus their handcrafted charcuterie, gourmet pantry items, and frozen ready-made meals from their own kitchen.
It also covers their Fraser Valley chicken, which is one of the quieter case studies in why butcher-shop chicken tastes different from what’d you typically find at normal grocery stores.
Theirs is raised without hormones or antibiotics, and it’s air-chilled rather than water-chilled. That means the skin crisps up properly in the pan and the meat doesn’t water-log, which is what you actually want when you cook it.
The butcher-made bone broth, sold hot and ready to grab on the way out, has its own following with the regulars.
All of this lines up with a broader point Windsor Meats has been making for a while now.
Grocery shopping has shifted toward speed and price compression, with online ordering and rapid delivery flattening the experience and the product.
Small butchers go the other direction.
You pay a bit more, but you get meat you can trace, advice from someone who actually cuts it, and a relationship that outlasts the delivery window.
Eighty years in business doesn’t happen without the regulars who keep showing up.
The Monthly Customer Appreciation Day is the open invitation: walk in any first Tuesday, meet the butchers, save 15%, bring home dinner.
The next Customer Appreciation Day runs June 2 at all four Windsor Meats locations:
- Edgemont Village, North Vancouver: 3108 Edgemont Blvd
- Caulfeild, West Vancouver: 5357 Headland Dr
- Vancouver: 4889 MacKenzie St
- Steveston, Richmond: 12251 No 1 Rd, Unit 190
All four stores are open every day, 10am to 6:30pm.
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