George Salo Sr., a Ukranian immigrant, was a meat man all his working life. When he married Marie in 1985, she helped him run State Meats, an old fashioned butcher shop in Parma that he’d opened in 1974. She was left with four young children and the store when he died. Marie, who had grown up on a farm in France and knew a thing or two about turning pigs into pork chops, carried on with the help of a longtime employee, for the next 19 years. But the day George Jr., now 24, graduated from high school, he had to make a choice: follow his dream of enlisting in the Air Force and becoming a fighter pilot or take over the family business.
“I was third in line,” says George Jr. “None of the older kids were interested. Mom had a buyer. If I said no, she was going to sell it. I had just a few minutes to think things over and make a decision.”
Georgie, as he’s called by his siblings, went for the whole kielbasa, agreeing to revive and preserve the meat making traditions his father had brought with him from the old country. But he had to start from scratch, reading, taking classes, and peppering the pros with questions.
“I grew up in the store,” he says, “and helped out on the retail side but I didn’t know much about what actually went on in the back. I was five when my dad passed away so I never had the opportunity to learn from him. At first, I had to put in 12-14 hours a day, figuring things out as I went along.”
Today, he prepares a variety of traditional sausages, cold cuts, and hams on the premises, doing all his own smoking. Customers, many who have been coming in to the State Road store for years, count on finding all their favorites: rice rings, brats, Polish and Ukranian style kielbasa, head cheese, prasky (salami) and bochek (bacon).
“It’s been a long journey,” says George Salo Jr, “that started when my father came to America as a teenager in the 1950’s.”
>>Meet More Food Folks Here<<