Throwback vibe

At Broadway Butcher Shop your butcher can tell you where your meat is from, how to prepare it and what to cook it with. It’s a relationship built on trust.

“Myself or Greg are going to be here from open until close,” Johnson said. “That way somebody with experience, somebody that’s knowledgeable is always here to help the customers, to inform the customers.”

Education of a butcher

Johnson grew up in a grocery store, taking his first job at a Crest Apple Market in Belton when he was 16. “I was terrible when I started, and they didn’t give up on me, which was good.”

He found his niche.

“Cutting meat, there is a career there,” Johnson said. “Usually at the grocery stores the meat cutters are the ones that make a little bit more than everyone else, because it kind of is a skill, and not everybody can cut meat and make it look like it’s supposed to.”

Going rogue

Johnson said he always wanted to get away from the grocery store scene, but he loved cutting meat.

When Greg Madouras decided he wanted to open his own butcher shop, he knew Johnson, who he trained at Price Chopper in Overland Park, was the man he could trust.

“He presented me with this when he knew a little bit more about it and said, ‘I want you to come with me,’ ” Johnson said. “At the drop of the hat, I said, ‘OK, let’s do it.’ ”

Knife Skills

“It’s nice to be able to get a knife in your hand and wave it around a piece of meat, and then somebody takes it home and cooks it for dinner,” he said.

Repping Midtown

Broadway Butcher Shop is banking on becoming part of a routine for its customers. Gomer’s is next door and owns the building where Madouras rents. “You come down here and look around, and it’s busy down here,” Johnson said. “There’s a lot of people coming and going. We’ve got parking right out front. Somebody coming home from work, they can pull right up front, jump out, come in here, grab their stuff and continue on their way.”