A "steak" in the community . . .

On Monday, February 6th, 2012, Whitteker Meat Market in Williamsburg celebrates 75 years in business. No small feat in today’s marketplace. Yet Whitteker’s thrives today, more popular than ever, widely known for a unique quality of service, the most flavorful of products, and the location to verify any and all of Dundas County’s grapevine news.
In this feature we reflect on memories and interviews (thirty years past) of and with the original owner/operator of Whitteker Meat Market, Walt Whitteker, and more recently Walt’s son Glen, (pictured below) present-day owner/operator of one of Dundas County’s oldest and widely popular family busnesses.

One of the very best of the blessings bestowed upon those choosing to live in rural areas, we believe, is that of knowing people. And we do mean KNOWING people!
Knowing an individual, or a family, a pastor or a politician, or a business operator, means knowing the family matriarch and patriarch, the sisters and brothers, and yes, maybe even a cousin or two. Individuals in rural areas tend to be described, more often than not, by adjectives referring to blood lines. “Oh yes, she’s so and so’s daughter . . .”.
We, personally, have been very fortunate in this regard. Following a career of taking notes and pictures, attempting to create stories and pass along information, we’ve managed to meet many, many individuals and families and business operators whose stories we’ve attempted to document and share along the way. And as always, there are those individuals and places that stand in the forefront of our memories and experiences.
This week, for instance, we were in Whitteker Meat Market, that long-ago established family business (1937) nestled among the residences and commercial outlets sprinkled along the main street in Williamsburg, Ontario.
Oh, and by the way, it isn’t Whitteker’s Meat Market. It’s Whitteker Meat Market!

We know the Whittekers. Have known them, well,  almost for eons!?! And we know them for a number of reasons, one in particular being that Whitteker Meat Market is the second oldest, continually operated, family owned business in all of (South) Dundas, excluding family farms. Actually, we believe in all of Dundas County.
At any rate, while shooting the breeze with current proprietor Glen Whitteker and sidekick Keith Baldwin, the subject of family business came up. And it was kind of announced, with both pride and a polite, country shyness, that Whitteker Meat Market would be celebrating their 75th anniversary on February 6th, 2012.
Imagine! Seventy-five years. That is impressive!!!
We’ve known Whitteker Meat Market for a good number of those years. We’ve long-time shopped there. We’ve taken a seat around the wood stove on a Saturday some years back where we’ve been included in “very important” discussions. Perhaps enjoyed a refreshment on a particularly dry day.
And through all of those years, we continue to enjoy a unique brand of service, an over the top flavor of quality and a down to earth friendliness, realistically, impossible to find elsewhere.
During our conversation with Glen and Keith we thought of the many occassions we had interviewed Glen’s father, Walt. It isn’t necessary to say Walt Whitteker. When we speak of Whitteker Meat Market we know we have only to mention the moniker “Walt”. Everybody who’s anybody knows of whom we speak.
Walt is the original owner/operator of Whitteker Meat Market. The current owner’s father. And he was one of a kind.
Walt Whitteker grew up on the Whitteker farm on the 6th concession of Williamsburg Township! How could a person not know Walt Whitteker? The very stone used in the construction of the landmark Lutheran Church in Williamsburg came from the Whitteker farm. That would be Walt’s father’s farm!
Walt Whitteker bought the store which houses Whitteker Meat Market from Robert McMillan in 1937. Same location today.
It was years ago we started shopping for all of our meat at Whitteker Meat Market. We knew Glen at the time as “Walt’s kid”, and because he and his sister Doris went to school with two of our sisters. Furthermore, we regularly saw Glen in the store.  When we’d visit to aid carrying our father’s order Glen was there working alongside his father.
Employed at our own family’s newspaper business in the early ‘80’s, we were sent to Whitteker Meat Market to interview Walt Whitteker. Happened it was the 45th Anniversary of the opening of Whitteker Meat Market.
“And get a good picture of Old Walt!” we were instructed. “Old Walt?”, we thought to ourselves! “Hmmmm, by our calculation, are you sure Walt isn’t younger than you?”
But, it turns out our math skills never were much to write home about. And little did we know at the time the publisher of the day  and the butcher were both Liberals, which in itself made allowances for “age” jokes. Or ignoring the realization of natural succession. By this time Glen was pretty much in charge of the daily comings and goings at Whitteker Meat Market.
So it was January, 1982. Probably a Thursday. We toured back Highway #31 to Williamsburg, turned around and considering ourselves quite important, parked on the sidewalk, immediately in front of Whitteker Meat Market’s entrance. And walked in, camera and notepad in hand.

“Hi Walt,” we announce our arrival to the man standing at the counter. He was writing figures on a brown paper bag. Several customers were pondering the meat counter and a recognizable few were discussing “important things” around the wood stove in the corner. One with a cigar stub sticking out of a pipe! The municipal clerk.
Walt Whitteker did not look up. Didn’t offer even a miniscule acknowledgment of our greeting.Except . . . ”You know, if you’d have taken a bit more time you could have parked close enough to the door so that nobody could get in or out of here!”  And he continued to add up the figures and inform the customer of his tab, while we moved the car.
In those days purchased items appeared in a legible column of numerals, pencilled and tallied on the grocery bag in which they were handed to customers. By price - not by name!
We spoke with Walt Whitteker at length that day. And we spoke to many of his customers over the next week or so.
Turned out that Walt Whitteker had opened his business in 1937, although by the time this interview took place son Glen was visibly carving his mark on the family enterprise. Walt had bought the building from Robert McMillan back then, organizing a meat market to serve the need of a fantastic time for all of Dundas County. The days of the famed Doctor Locke and the thousands of patients he drew to the community of Williamsburg each and every day created opportunity for anyone and everyone.
Walt opened his Meat Market amid thirty plus tea rooms, at least one hotel, a few grocery stores, a town newspaper and numerous other commercial operations riding the financial wave of the Doctor Locke driven boom times. And he told us he prospered.
We asked him “How did you do at that time?”, thinking this question may initiate a great answer.
He answered. “I prospered!”, looking at us like we were just slightly daft.
He then offered us a taste of his “home made sauerkraut”. A creation he announced with some fanfare, handing out samples to favored customers. Actually, we believe he was leading us on just a bit.
Walt Whitteker, we learned at the time, possessed a very dry sense of humor. Unless of course he had a good joke requiring  a lengthy explain. Then he would laugh. In fact, some times he would guffaw! And a prominent, apron clad belly would giggle up and down.
Walt loved to scan the daily newspapers for political cartoons, particularly ones making light of the “opposition”, and he would religiously tape those cartoons to the viewing level front of the glass enclosed meat counter. Couldn’t miss them.
Walt told us of the great times in Williamsburg, of the meat restrictions brought about during the great world conflict, and muttered something about “useless government imposed meat restrictions still in place today!”
He said he had decided on building a freezer plant at the back of the store after reading about such an operation in the newspaper in 1948. And he did. Nobody had a freezer in those days. Which gave great reason to the construction of three hundred meat lockers, in turn rented for an annual fee. And filled with meat purchased and butchered at Whitteker Meat Market.
Customer traffic moved in and out of Whitteker Meat Market the day we worked that interview. Some to buy meat, some to take a seat around the warmth of the old wood stove, some to share stories and current information concerning area families, farms and politics.
Walt Whitteker showed us the silver tray presented to him by Schneider’s Meats five years previous, on the occasion of the business’s 40th anniversary. Which turned the bulb on, and we asked, “So Walt, what will you be doing to celebrate the 45th Anniversary?”
No hesitation in the answer, although we did note a return to recognizing us as a bit daft,
“Well I’ll have to work!’ he shot at us, “It’s Saturday you know!!!!”
That was 1982 and a near kilogram Schneider’s Bucket of Chicken was selling for $3.89. Five hundred grams of Schneiders Choice Bacon was $2.15. And 500 grams of Schneider’s Soft Margarine was 69 cents.
Walt Whitteker was interviewed again by The Leader in January, 1987. The 50th Anniversary of Whitteker Meat Market. He had slowed somewhat in his past daily work habits but on this day was up bright and early in preparation of meeting the Schneider’s rep.
Walt was to receive a 24k gold pen from the company where he had been purchasing product for a half century. A half century during which Williamsburg’s boom times had ended, the tea rooms and restaurants long gone and the grocery stores eventually closing their doors. The community newspaper, an interesting story in itself and a local record of historic times, lasted only several years and it too had long been put to bed.

Schneider’s was describing the popular Williamsburg merchant as “the oldest standing customer with our 97 year-old company.”
And although we had moved on to Ottawa and Montreal in the mid-80’s, we continued to return to Williamsburg to purchase our meat at Whitteker Meat Market.  And we met a good number of “out-of-towners” who followed the same carnivores path to Whitteker’s door.
Glen had won the father/son family business shuffle, taking the reins so to speak, although Walt continued to show up at the store until he was more than 80 years of age. Glen had expanded to provide a larger grocery area, and in doing so, he told us, he had exercised a great faux-pas.
Glen removed the wood stove!
“I pretty much heard from everybody that I shouldn’t have done that.” Glen tells us with only the slightest twinge of guilt still on his face.  
“I got so many complaints from so many people I had to bring it back inside.” he says, adding, with an inherited dry wit, “I guess there were a lot of problems solved around that old stove!” And a barely visible chuckle.
Glen says he’s been at the business for more than 40 years, alongside his wife Heather. And long standing butcher Keith Baldwin has been in the Whitteker employ for more than 30 years. He knows everybody in and around the community. And employees Sharon Froom and Edna Eldridge have also become institutions at Whitteker Meat Market.
“We’ve been here a long time,” says Glen, adding, ‘Over the years we’ve met a lot of people and you know, pretty much 99 per cent of them are all nice people.”
Glen suddenly recalls a humorous moment. We thought we saw his apron clad belly jiggle.
 “At our 50th Anniversary I think bread was around 79 cents a loaf and I thought I’d order in a hundred or so loaves and sell them for 50 cents.”
“On that Saturday one of the big wigs from the bread supplier got wind of this and came to the store and started telling me I couldn’t sell the bread for that price.” One can see Glen getting a bit flushed remembering these details. Seeming to forget the annoying individual and getting back to the humorous side of the situation he continued.
“Well I said I ordered that bread and I paid you for it this morning. So that’s my bread. And if I want to I’ll give it away and you won’t have any say in it!” He starts to laugh as he remembers, “Well he went right out the door and we never saw him again!”
Whitteker Meat Market is in the local news every five years. Celebrating another five years of business.
Whitteker meat Market, this week, celebrates 75 years in business.
And that is, in our belief, because the customer service and community service has always been just as important as the flavor of their product.
The Odd Fellows in Williamsburg, an organization which over the years has provided an incredible financial support package to their community, “deals everything at Whitteker’s.”
“Ya know, we’ve dealt everything at Whitteker’s for as long as I can remember,” we are told by one Odd Fellows spokesperson, “Old Walt and his son Glen today are just plain salt of the earth people!”
We will vouch for that!
And from Williamsburg’s elegant First Lady of many years, Mrs. Blanche Locke, wife of Doctor Mahlon Locke, who we spent considerable time talking to during and around the composition of numerous stories concerning Williamsburg and its environs in those days: “I have shopped at Whitteker Meat Market since Walt opened the store and he has always left one feeling better when they departed the store than when they came in.”
Today, Whitteker Meat Market employees tally meat and over the counter orders on a cash register. Cash or cheque - no plastic.
For more years than we care to count it has been around Whitteker Meat Market’s wood stove the important community news has been discussed, dispersed and passed along.
We know too there is a well earned and wide spread perception regarding the meat from Whitteker’s.
“There is just something about the flavor of their beef” is a common statement offered not only through-out South-Dundas but farther afield. The steaks, especially thick-cut ribs steaks, their prime-rib .  “There simply isn’t anything like it!”
We tend to believe it. We have enjoyed the banter, the information, the presentation, the time and smarts in customer service.

We’ve enjoyed meeting people in Whitteker Meat Market. We’ve experienced a seat at the stove. We knew Walt’s family and today know his great grandchildren.
Actually, we’ve enjoyed every aspect of knowing the Whittekers. And here are two, very telling reasons why.
Prior to Christmas day dinner this year our ‘mid-forties children’ called to discuss a menu. We’ve been blessed with six grandchildren.
We asked what they preferred for a main course, to which they replied, “Whitteker’s prime rib”! Not a split second of hesitation,
And secondly: When the gang with the grandchildren in tow did came for dinner, we travelled to Whitteker’s to pick-up the prime rib with our grandson, who was infatuated with the visibly working woodstove.  It was less than a week before Christmas.Just this past week our son called, using the speaker phone to include our grandchildren, and to inform us of our grandson’s hockey tournament in the next few weeks. He invited us to attend and stay over, and to enjoy a “nice, family supper” while we were there. We agreed and suggested we could bring the steaks.
That’s when a seven-year-old voice piped up, ‘Hey Grandpa, can you go to that store with the fire stove where we got the good Christmas meat?”
How might one argue that logic?
“Having Whitteker’s being part of our municipality for 75 years says a lot about South Dundas.” says present Mayor Steven Byvelds.  “Whitteker Meat Market has been the cornerstone of Williamsburg and I, as Mayor, thank them for being part of our community.”

Steak and Pork recipes