How One Giant Meat Warehouse Supplies Shake Shack And Top Steakhouses | Big Business

this is where some of America's best restaurants get their steak Pat lefrida meat purveyors supplies thousands of restaurants from New York to Las Vegas it has the largest dry aging room in the world one family has run this business for over a century and Pat is the third generation owner right now there's well over 10 million dollars to meet in here he brought in a whole

new approach to the business selling high-end meat to both fancy restaurants but also to Burger chains like Shake Shack Pat's team produces 250 000 pounds of meat every night it's kind of like Jenga where you're moving one piece and another piece comes in it takes years to develop an army like we have their weapons butcher's knives band saws meat grinders so how does Pat lefrida manage

to supply everything from three dollar Smash Burgers to two hundred dollar Stakes and how did he turn a humble butcher shop into a 270 million dollar meat Empire Pat only buys Prime and choice B the highest USDA grades these Cuts have the most marbling which adds flavor so how does all this pricey steak get to kitchens chefs normally know what they want to order what they

need to order after that dinner server and then they really want the product delivered the next morning a few hours later that's why shifts here start around 6 pm and then it's a race against the clock some kitchens need these Stakes by the following morning the only way to work throughout the night is is to have cohesion as a former former military guy myself building that

team it takes time many Stakes start in this dry aging room which holds 15 000 of Pat's finest cuts it has to stay at 36 degrees Fahrenheit and 80 percent humidity otherwise everything will spoil or freeze and Pat could lose Millions as the meat ages moisture evaporates and muscles break down we know that the dry aging process is working when we see that the protein has

sunken in from the bone and the fat workers wheel the meat to the portioning section Master butchers go to work on everything from Tomahawk steaks to New York strips slicing them exactly the way each restaurant wants Pat trained most of these butchers himself the ones you made this morning were beautiful oh yeah there really are no buttons in schools restaurants will ask me Pat where do

you get your butchers from like we don't get up but because we make our bushes they only need a few tools to get the job done in most people's hands you're going to see boning knives with this you could basically do the whole job until you get to cutting the steak across and that's where you want a scimitar knife and what makes this a butcher knife

as opposed to a chef's knife we have a protective corner but certain Cuts require using a band saw it's ideal for slicing through bone or doing high volume orders as fast as possible only Master butchers can operate them it's probably a good two and a half years before they would even get to a band saw next workers load everything onto trucks if a customer is local

Pat's team can deliver within a few hours the Press Club Grill in New York City gets thousands of pounds of meat from lafrida per week owner and Chef Franklin Becker showed us how he prepares a boneless rib eye and let all that salt kind of penetrate into the pores of the meat and then I'm going on to an infrared broiler this steak doesn't take long it's

pretty quick in just five to six minutes you'll get a juicy medium rare [Music] so you see that fat starting to caramelize okay you let it rest then the meat's gonna kind of reabsorb all those juices and when you slice it there's going to be nothing left really on the board that's when a steak is perfectly rested that's when you know that you've cooked it right

one of the most legendary steakhouses in New York City Peter Luger has been sourcing meat cuts from lafrida since 1998. Peter Luger has garnered its reputation as a New York City institution frankly did a lot of hard work and I think it starts with our attention to detail in selecting each piece of meat that comes into this restaurant we're really about letting the highest quality steak

we can buy shine with just a little salt and a tiny bit of butter we cook the steak to order and we send it out sizzling hot to the guy that's it but lofrida doesn't just Supply fancy restaurants back in 2004 Pat bought the company's first Burger machine to make patties for a new fast casual chain that was about to open Shake Shack Pat created a

special blend without trimmings or added fat for the new chain Shake Shack still uses Pat's recipes today and the Frida still supplies patties for more than 100 of its locations every Burger starts on the main floor two thousand pounds of Angus beef are dumped onto conveyor belts machines spray them with diluted vinegar that kills potential germs other machines grind and mix the meat the ground meat

goes into Patty forming machines which can make 200 different blends workers need to move fast the company pumps out over 200 000 Burgers a day yes pretty hectic and frustrating sometimes when it gets overload but um every single day is just a different challenge Mel's butcher box in Tenafly New Jersey is one of Pat's loyal customers owner Melanie landano orders up to a hundred pounds of

burgers from him a day for the restaurant we use the original Pat lafrida blend which is a short rib brisket Blends for special events if a customer requests dry age brisket Burgers we get that some people request a 45-day dry age burger with um anything I want Pat will make for us once we put it on the grill we leave it on the grill and a

lot of people like to press on press on the meat then all the juices come out I what I do I flip it once I leave it and let it cook and then I hold I let it rest here on top of her daily customers Mel also Cooks burgers for four local schools on Monday morning alone she grows over 200 patties for students So today we're

probably going to cook uh five or six cases in one hour so it's Burger Palooza Mel also buys lefrida's skirt steaks ribeye cheesesteaks and meatballs here's our the freedom meatballs this is going with this penne meatball we're just heating up this is uh his grandfather's recipe and they're delicious I'm Italian so I don't use any other any other meatball but Pat Le Freedom meatball if I

have no time to make my own so Family Recipes are still an important part of the fritas Pat's great grandfather opened a Brooklyn butcher shop in 1922 after moving the operation to Manhattan's growing Meatpacking District Pat's grandfather took over and started Pat lafrida meat purveyors Pat started learning the job as a child my favorite times were cutting meat with my grandfather to my left and my

dad to my right but Pat's father insisted his son try a different career first he didn't want me to work those hours he didn't want me in that environment Pat spent nine months working as a stockbroker but then ditched that job to join the family business a decade later Pat would be named CEO and now my dad can't wait for my son to go off to

college and come back and run the family business when Pat joined in 1994 the company had 44 restaurant customers now they have 1600 and are posting annual sales of 270 million dollars we are several hundred times larger than we were in 2021 Pat opened this new 20 million dollar facility to keep such a massive operation running Pat has to be more than a manager though he

does everything he comes Works in production he works with us he goes on the table he goes to see customers he oversees everything it's something I love to do and I do a lot of my best thinking while I'm cutting to me it's a relaxing time even after this much growth Pat thinks there's room for more this facility produces about 250 000 pounds of products a

night and with the capacity to probably triple or quadruple that so we built it with the space to to be able to expand from there [Music] [Music]