Butcher & Bird’s New Subscription Box Is Chuck-Full of Meaty Delights

Photo: Maria Burke

After living in Europe where neighborhood butcher shops are the norm, the culture shock was real when I came home to shrink-wrapped packages of, well, just about everything. Then Butcher & Bird opened in Kaka‘ako in 2018. It’s not just about hand-picking your favorite steak or examining the selection of house-made sausages—it’s about conversations with an expert who can tell you about the sourcing, different cuts, even cooking tips. At Butcher & Bird that expert is owner and head butcher Chuck Wakeman, a veteran of the kitchens at Vintage Cave and the Pig & The Lady.

Photo: Maria Burke

For a sandwich lover like me, a visit to Butcher & Bird is also about the deli menu of burgers and hearty sandwiches that make this one of my favorite stops for lunch. But on my last visit I discovered something entirely different. Recently launched online, the Bird Box is a $99 monthly subscription that gets you a selection of items like dry-aged steak, specialty sausages, smoked meats, charcuterie and even house-made pantry items like tomato jam and sour cherry and mango mustard. You order online and pick up the box starting the first Saturday of every month.

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A random sampling of some items you might find in a Bird Box includes dry-aged steak, sausages, house-cured meats and pantry items. Actual boxes contain more. Photo: Maria Burke

The best part? Wakeman says items exceed the $99 total value. Some things are for grilling; others are ready to eat. A monthly steak ranges from Maui grass-fed beef to American wagyu from Idaho’s Snake River Farms, all dry-aged in-house. Sausages range from breakfast sausage to the Swiss-style kase kreiner filled with cheese and finished with a formidable kick. Wakeman’s house-cured charcuterie is sometimes in the rotation, along with East Coast favorites like giardiniera, an Italian pickled condiment. It’s also a chance for his team to try out new creations, or bring back previous selections that proved popular.

August’s box, for example:

• One dry-aged rib eye
• Breakfast sausages
• Liverwurst
• Kase Kreiner
• Tart cherry mustard
• Giardiniera

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Here’s what’s coming in September:

• One dry-aged steak
• Smoked pork chops
• Soppresatta
• Capicola
• Mortadella with pistachios
• Chow chow (a Southern-style sweet pickled cabbage and other crunchy veggies)
• Chile mango beer mustard
• Ho Farms pickled tomatoes

Now back to the lunch menu. My last visit turned up not only the Bird Box, but a secret menu item. Butcher & Bird’s Bronx original chop cheese sandwich is the only one I’ve found on island. A luscious combination of burger patty, onions, pimentos and rich American cheese is chopped up and grilled on the flat top, then topped with lettuce and pepperoncini peppers and tucked into a toasted hoagie roll. The pepperoncinis pop with acid and layer pleasingly with the cheesy meat mash, all of it complemented by the perfectly crusty roll.

Chop cheese sandwich. Photo: Maria Burke

Given these discoveries, I’ll be casually checking in on Wakeman to see what he’s up to next. My first Bird Box pickup next weekend gives me the chance to do just that.

Open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., 324 Coral St. #207, (808) 762-8095, butcherandbirdhi.com, @butcherandbird