Back Home Butcher Brings a Taste of Home to Brunswick County

Southport has a new destination for premium meats, deli favorites and nostalgic specialty foods with the arrival of Back Home Butcher, a butcher shop and specialty market created by people who love food and feeding others.

Chef Scott Euvrard, who cofounded the shop with his wife Joan DeSantis, Kevin Fahy and Elizabeth and Ben Bynum, said the idea grew naturally from years of friendship, shared meals and a passion for quality ingredients.

Euvrard is originally from Albany, New York, and is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. He worked at several New York restaurants before relocating to the Wilmington area with DeSantis in 2007. He and DeSantis, who also has a culinary degree, worked for the Country Club of Landfall before DeSantis went on to work in hotel sales and Euvrard moved to Cape Fear National in Brunswick Forest.

It was there that Euvrard met Ben Bynum, a sales representative for food distributor Cheney Brothers. They soon realized they were neighbors with children of similar ages, and before long, the families were gathering regularly for Sunday dinners.

Those Sunday dinners centered around camaraderie and the preparation of great food, but they also eventually turned into brainstorming sessions about a business model they felt would be successful in Brunswick County.

“We wanted to do something with a mom-and-pop kind of feel, but with really high-quality ingredients,” Euvrard said. “And we definitely wanted there to be a retail side to it.”

When the couples decided to move forward with the project, they paid a visit to Kevin Fahy, owner of The Butcher of Brunswick in Ocean Isle Beach. They wanted to be sure they weren’t going to be infringing on his business.

Fahy not only supported the idea but also offered to join forces.

“We didn’t want to step on his toes,” Euvrard said. “He gave us his blessing, but he was also interested in joining the partnership, so we brought him into the fold.”

Back Home Butcher opened its doors in August and has been busy ever since, said Euvrard. He said the name and the concept seem to resonate with customers almost immediately, especially those who have relocated from the north.

“We hear it all the time, ‘This place reminds me of back home,’” Euvrard said.

That feeling is supported by thoughtfully curated products, many of which are imported from New York or Italy, as well as hard-to-find favorites that people grew up with. Whether it’s a beloved brand of sweet bologna from Pennsylvania or Cooper Sharp American cheese, Euvrard and his team have worked hard to track down items that make visitors light up.

“It’s funny, because you think it’s going to be just this one person who’s really excited about a product they requested and you might sit on it, and then once you get it in, a bunch of other people get excited about it too,” Euvrard said.

Back Home Butcher places enormous value on sourcing and transparency.

“We know our ranchers and purveyors,” Euvrard said. “We know where the food’s coming from, we’ve gone to the ranches, and we know what their practices are.”

While beef is sourced from outside North Carolina, much of the shop’s chicken and pork is sourced locally.

Euvrard said customers today ask many more questions about where the food comes from and how it’s processed, and he welcomes it.

In addition to the specialty goods and meats and cheeses sold by the pound, the deli case is packed with prepared foods like lasagna, chicken cutlets, eggplant parmesan, pasta salads, arancini and broccoli rabe that can be eaten on site or packaged for carry out.

The deli counter welcomes guests to sit down and have a bite to eat and a draft beer or place an order to go. A large chalkboard displays a wide variety of hot and cold sandwiches, which Euvrard said have also become customer favorites.

“The cheesesteak is really popular,” Euvrard said. “And the cold Italian, the Reuben and the pastrami are super popular with the New Yorkers because, again, you can’t always find those authentic deli sandwiches around here.”

Food as memory. Food as home. Food as connection. At Back Home Butcher, that’s exactly the point.