The Meat Hook and Cozy Royale: A Tale of Two Brooklyn Businesses

When The Meat Hook opened in 2009 in Brooklyn, it was a dream come true for Brent Young. The whole-animal butcher shop, which Young co-owns with Ben Turley, was in the right place at the right time: the hipster Williamsburg neighborhood at the start of the artisanal movement. Neighbors quickly became die-hard fans of the shop, where they could learn about the sustainable practices of different small farms as they selected cuts of meat. In time, the food news site, Eater, would proclaim The Meat Hook “Williamsburg’s cult-favorite butcher shop.”

In January 2020, Young had another dream come true when he and Turley purchased a space just a few steps away from The Meat Hook that they aimed to open as a neighborhood tavern called Cozy Royale. There, they’d sell American fare with the same whole-animal, small-farm-supporting ethos as The Meat Hook. It didn’t take long to realize, however, that this business would not have that same right-place/right-time luck. In a matter of weeks, COVID-19 swept the country, shaking the restaurant industry to its core. “The past two years have not stopped in any way presenting different difficulties,” says Young. “There are high highs and low lows.” When he reflects on the times he’s weathering, Young is grateful for the supportive patrons and determined farm partners who have helped the businesses make it through.

A Humble Beginning

Young never expected to be a butcher, or even an entrepreneur. But in the early 2000s, when he was in graduate school working towards his master’s degree in teaching, he began working as an apprentice at a butcher shop in Richmond, Virginia. For him, it was a way to reconnect with cooking—he’d enjoyed working in kitchens in high school and college—and also learn new skills. “I really like working with my hands, I like talking to customers, I like selling things,” he says.

As he butchered meat and put a mix of cuts from different animals into boxes for customers to purchase, he started thinking about the origins of the meat. He didn’t know the farms or the farmers, but he wanted to. He also thought that consumers would appreciate hearing those stories, and that a whole-animal butcher—which uses all the parts of an animal, rather than purchasing only the more popular parts—could be a good business. That’s when he heard about a whole-animal butcher called Marlow & Daughters opening in New York City. He was so enamored with the concept that he packed up and moved to Brooklyn and got a job there as a butcher.  

The more he learned about the whole-animal butcher business, the more he wanted to open his own shop so that he could work directly with farmers. So he and Turley—who had been a long-time friend, and was also working at a butcher shop in Virginia—decided to open up their own business. They found a small space within The Brooklyn Kitchen, a cooking school in Brooklyn that they could afford.

The premise of The Meat Hook—an approachable butcher shop that uses all parts of the animal and leaves any sense of pretension at the door—struck a chord with patrons. “Our whole point in opening the shop was to give everyone access to the knowledge of the butcher, and to really break down that barrier so that we could share with people what a whole animal has to offer,” says Young. He adds that the only way to ensure that an animal has been grass fed and raised in a manner that is good for the environment is to know the farmers, and to purchase the entire animal. Young has visited and built relationships with all the The Meat Hook's family farmers, whom he's found through word-of-mouth and who share a similar philosophy on sustainable agriculture: The beef is all 100 percent grass-fed, and the pork and lamb is pasture-raised in New York state.  

After the shop developed a dedicated following, Young knew it was time to leave the shared space and move into a larger one of their own. With the help of a loan from a farmer they work with, they were able to do that in 2016. Then, he set his sights on opening a restaurant.

Everything but the Moo

A restaurant known for its burgers is the perfect partner to a whole-animal butcher shop. That’s because when you look at the breakdown of a cow, about half of its weight—as a butcher sees it—is divided between steaks and ground beef; the remainder is bones. “So you’ve got to sell a whole load of ground beef and/or hamburgers to make this whole-animal model work,” says Young.

Finding a location in the same neighborhood as The Meat Hook was crucial in order to draw in patrons who already loved the products. “We don’t have financial backing to go and get a public relations agency to spend $10,000 a month to get attention,” says Young. He knew that instead, quality and familiarity would have to be the draw. A loan from a credit card company helped cover some of the initial business expenses. 

When Cozy Royale opened in September of 2020, the restaurant served patrons outdoors for a couple of months before cold weather set in. Over the winter, it was temporarily re-branded The Meat Hook Burger Shop—simply because people were more familiar with the name—and served carryout burgers and chicken sandwiches. “We broke even for those six months, and we were able to open in the spring because we kept everyone employed and generated some revenue,” says Young. In the spring of 2021, the Cozy Royale name returned, and now the restaurant continues to serve burgers, along with steak and chicken and pork dishes.

As more customers return to dining out and masks are coming off, Young is hopeful for a sense of stability. The Meat Hook, he says, has done quite well during the pandemic. Because of its relationships with small farms, it was able to avoid many of the supply chain issues that larger agricultural businesses experienced, and it benefited from customers looking to support small businesses.

 The past two years have not stopped in any way presenting different difficulties. [...] There are high highs and low lows.

—Brent Young, co-owner, The Meat Hook and Cozy Royale

Likewise, Cozy Royale, Young believes, just needs some time to hit its stride. There’s no question that opening a restaurant during a pandemic has been brutal. But when he reflects on the last two years, Young feels good about where he is. “I’m not going to be able to retire any time soon, but I love my job. I like going to work every day. And there’s a community around us that’s really supportive, so I’m pretty freaking lucky,” he says.  “I don’t think you could ask for much more than that.”

Photo: Alice Plati