Porter Road, a whole animal butcher shop in Nashville, TN, is extending their offerings nationwide with a new direct-to-consumer service. Now you can order pasture-raised meats from Kentucky and Tennessee and enjoy them in your home!
The Porter Road butcher shop was founded by a pair of chefs who are also butchers. Sharing their love for showcasing artisan cuts of meat, the chefs began selling both to restaurants in the Nashville area and to locals via the Porter Road butcher shop.
When people tasted the difference between Porter Road’s meats and what they could find at the local grocery store, demand for their quality products grew beyond their hometown market. Now anyone can place an order with the butchers and delicious Porter Road meat will arrive at your doorstep within a few days (depending on your location).
Porter Road Order Process
The website is simple to navigate. Customers can choose from curated boxes of Porter Road meat and combo kits, or pick a specific protein and shop directly with a final dish in mind. As you browse the offerings, beautifully photographed images of what the cuts look like make each selection even more enticing. You’ll want to add all the Porter Road meats to your online shopping cart.
We were pleased to find that the images of the products listed on the Porter Road website were an excellent representation of what we received after placing our order.
Porter Road Shipping
Our grills are over 1,900 miles from Nashville, TN so we were shocked to receive a notification that the Porter Road shipment had arrived within about 48 hours of placing the order. We were so surprised by the efficiency that no one was available to receive the package. But when we received the package, a full day later, we found the meat was extremely cold due to the attention that went into the packaging.
As we unboxed the items, they were cold, soft, and looked amazing. Normally, mail order meat is shipped frozen. After a little research, we learned that Porter Road meats are shipped fresh, not frozen, which is really fantastic. Even after an extra day in transit, the meat was still colder than if we had purchased it from a local grocery store.
Porter Road Selections
Porter Road offers what we call the ‘Core Four’ meats: Beef, Pork, Lamb, and Chicken.
From the first glance at the beef section, it’s clear you are truly purchasing direct from an established butcher shop.
When we ordered, there were 50 different offerings for beef alone. They have all of the typical steaks and chops—like the New York strip, rib eye steak with and without the bone, beef sirloin, and filet mignon—which all look mouth-watering.
Porter Road’s menu of offerings runs deep, however, with various cuts that would be rarely-seen at the supermarket. We found cuts like the teres major, blade steak, and pichana, just to name a few.
Porter Road also has some interesting sausages and a blend of ground meat they call Beef VS. Bacon that’s a 50/50 blend of lean ground beef and ground pork belly bacon. You can get lost in all of the fun beef offerings.
The diverse cuts of meat are showcased in the pork and lamb offerings as well. A retired chef friend and pitmaster was impressed by the bone-in lamb shoulder, commenting, “those aren’t easy to find”.
We found the sausage and ground meat offerings for the beef, pork, and lamb to be very traditional yet enticing. We welcome a future chance to sample how the bratwurst, chorizo, country breakfast sausage patties, and Italian sausage compare to when we hand-grind our own.
What We Loved
The fact that Porter Road is a whole animal butcher already sets them apart from the grocery store, because the meat will be fresher and of a higher quality than what you’re normally accustomed to cooking. The combination of Porter Road’s sourcing of high quality meats and breaking them down in-house yields products that are more flavorful and simply taste better when you get them on the grill.
Porter Road has done a solid job of accurately conveying, with the pictures on their website, what you will actually receive when the delivery hits your door.
Porter Road is currently offering curated boxes or packs of meat where they suggest selections for you. They have a clever subscription service through which Porter Road meats can be delivered on your schedule, every two, four, or eight weeks. We are already considering getting the Bacon Box or Grill Master Box shipped on a regular rotation.
What Could Be Improved
Finding something that needs improvement was not an easy thing when Porter Road offers such great selections.
But we’ll be picky.
The chicken offerings are limited. The only offering is the whole chicken, which we haven’t yet ordered. It would be fun to see them showcase some ready-to-grill chicken offerings. We understand more options in the poultry category will be coming soon.
Who It’s For
If you don’t have access to a true butcher shop, then Porter Road is for you. The diversity of the cuts and quality of the offerings make the shopping experience fun. This is also great for someone who may have access to a butcher shop, but doesn’t always have the time to swing in and appreciates having meat delivered directly to their door.
Final Thoughts: Porter Road Butcher
Porter Road is possibly a better representation of a butcher shop than you can find at a brick and mortar location. Butcher shops can sell out of a specific item on a busy day. Not to say that availability of Porter Road’s products doesn’t change from time to time, but ordering online ensures that you will get what you want, when you want it, and not be disappointed if there was run on kielbasa moments before you arrived at your local meat market.
We want to highlight that—given the quality of Porter Road’s offerings and their diverse selection—the prices are about as good, if not better, than a brick and mortar butcher shop.
We have yet to find another online meat delivery service that is committed to shipping their products fresh whenever possible, which is a huge bonus for the home cook or grill master.