Oregon Culture Keepers Roster Menu

Jordan Howard (Klamath Falls) runs Howards Meat Center, a third-generation meat grocery, locker, and processing business that does custom smoking and curing for hunters as well as a variety of ready-to-cook, small-batch dishes, marinated meats, and smoked meats as well as sausages and jerky. Howard grew up in his family business and took over in January 2021 when his father, Michael Howard, retired. He worked at Howard's when he was in high school and college and learned to butcher and process meat by watching and observing his father and grandfather. Howard's grandfather, Dick "Pop" Howard, Sr., who was born and reared in Idaho, founded the business in 1964 as a meat locker and grocery with fresh and cured meats. According to Jordan Howard, his grandfather started out at the Y-Market, worked in a variety of grocery stores, apprenticed with butchers, and eventually became a meat cutter in those stores. Over the years, Pop developed a secret sauce after much trial and error. Jordan Howard related, "Grandpa had a marinade that he made to put on chuck steaks," which were hard to sell. Eventually, he started using it to flavor tri-tips, chick breasts, and tenderloins. Pop's sauce became a local success, and thanks to the first and second-generation of Howards, Pop Howard's marinades and sauces are now available locally in Klamath Falls and in specialty markets in Oregon. Michael Howard, who took over when Pop passed in 1998, carried on the market's butchering and processing traditions for smoking and curing meats. Besides being a full-service meat locker and butcher shop, Howards also cuts and wrap meats for local farmers and ranchers as well as does specialty work for local hunters who bring in skinned and gutted game to be cut, wrapped, and turned into salami, sausages, and jerky. That game is all processed separately in a different area from the commercial meats, which the Howards purchase from local farmers. Michael Howard, explains his son, "has a pretty amazing palate; he can tell all the spices in something just by tasting" and has developed a number of recipes. Over the years, the business evolved from a butcher shop to a community treasure whose products reflect their customers' ethnic heritage and their changing tastes. Jordan Howard's favorite part of the business is retail. He enjoys seeing how the public likes what they've created. He explains that the Market's customers sometimes come in with a recipe for a certain cut, and "they've taught me a lot over time." Some might have a family sausage recipe, so the shop does custom-make sausages for those folks. Customers from the region's Czech American community buy pork, lard, and casings from Howards to make their own sausages. Howard's offers half a dozen chicken dishes to throw in the oven or on the grill; his customers appreciate that the prep work is done for homemade, small batch items such as kabobs, seasoned pork roasts, fajita mixes, pre-marinated carne asada, cottage bacon, smoked pork shoulder, and cornbread stuffed chicken as well as 15-20 varieties of sausages like Swedish potato sausage, British bangers, or spicy jalapeño sausages. Jordan Howard explains that while his own palate is not as refined as his father's, it's still "pretty good." He's developed recipes for his own dry rubs, which include three kinds of all-purpose mixes: sweet and smokey, smokey and savory sugar free; and a zesty spicy mix, which customers can use on vegetables, meat, and fish, depending on their preferences. Howard's Meat Market is at its busiest before Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. And Pop Howard's marinade, which has become a second family business, sells online and in stores in northern California and in towns in southern and central Oregon and on the state's south coast.