Get to Know … Tyler Pontarelli and Mario Minelli of Forza Meats
What sets your business apart?
We strive to bring a truly unique offering to our customers, to be the only place in the area where they can get things like dry-aged steaks and hand-made sausages, among all the other craft and artisanal products we offer. We also like to think we’re unique in other ways–by marrying the combination of butcher, deli, and kitchen, as well as blending a modern look and feel with old-school service and farm-to-table practices.
Why Glenview?
Mario and Tyler were Glenview born and raised, and have returned to raise their own families here. We loved the idea of bringing a fresh take on a tried-and-true model to our hometown, and we felt that Glenview was a sleeping giant in terms of the market for our products and services.
You might be surprised to know…
We opened a 2nd location on Dempster Street in Skokie this year, where we operate both a retail butcher shop as well as a wholesale meat business. We produce burgers and sausages for a growing number of restaurants, brewpubs, country clubs, and other food service establishments, including all the burgers for both Hackney’s locations here in Glenview!
What’s your favorite joke?
We have a chalkboard at our new Skokie shop where we just started a tradition of posting a new terrible “dad joke” every week. The “best of the wurst” so far is: “I would like to tell a meat joke…but I would probably just butcher it.”
