New Monmouth Meats owner Kyle Powell serves a customer while longtime owner Stewart Goldstein stands behind him. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
Stewart Goldstein, the most popular butcher in Red Bank, has known for a few years now it was nearing time for him to hang up the apron.
He’s closing in on 70 and hasn’t taken a proper vacation in years. The six-month experiment that began when he bought Monmouth Meats shop on Monmouth Street has now lasted twenty years, and well, he said with a shrug, “twenty’s a good number.” And the business itself? Well, the daily line at the counter and devoted customer base ensured that when he hired a sales broker to find a buyer, there was no shortage of hopefuls lining up.
But as he plotted retirement, Goldstein said he turned down “multiple offers” from people who wanted to put up the money and stay behind the scenes. Because if you know Stew? Well, that ain’t Stew’s style.
“It doesn’t work that way,” he said. “You need a face behind the counter and someone who cares.”
Well, Stew found his guy. And customers heading to the store to stock up for their July 4th barbecues will already find him behind the counter.
Goldstein recently sold the shop to Red Bank resident Kyle Powell, who at age 38, has already been a fixture behind Red Bank food counters for quarter century.
Powell shares not only a Goldstein’s commitment to darn good meat, but also to the store’s tradition of a healthy portion of banter, chit chat and over-the-counter ribbing to go along with it.
“I truly believe people come to places like this to talk with me, or to talk with Stew,” he said. “Besides having the best quality of everything, going to the butcher is like the barber of your meats. You talk with your barber, you chit chat, you do all that and it’s fun. It’s an experience, you enjoy it.”
The happy glow of a recent retiree on the face of longtime Monmouth Meats owner Stewart Goldstein. (photo by Brian Donohue)
It’s a life Powell has been longing for several years to get back to.
Powell, who grew up in Little Silver, started working at Citarella’s, the Prospect Street butcher shop that ended a 121-year run in 2022, when he was thirteen. He fell in love with the business, from the products themselves to the experience of meeting people and sending them home happily looking forward to a good meal.
“It’s the greatest thing on earth,” he said.
Since the closing of Citarella’s, Powell has managed a pair of local Gianni’s pizza locations. And he briefly worked on a plan to re-open a meat shop in the old Citarella’s building.
“I never wanted to get out of it,” he said of the butcher shop business. “I just missed this so much.”
Powell lives in Red Bank with his wife and two-year-old daughter. Since he quietly took over from Goldstein over the past two weeks, his wife, he says, has already noticed the spring in his step.
“When I first met her she said, “you know, you don’t have to say hello to everyone as you walk by,” he said. “But I’ve been like that forever.”
Goldstein said it made him the right guy to take over his legacy.
“Kyle came along, he’s a local buy, got a great personality, knows this business,” Goldstein said. “And he was the right person. I feel comfortable handing it over to his hands.”
Goldstein will continue to own the building, on which he commissioned a two-story mural of jazz icon William “Count” Basie last year.
As for the shop itself? Powell says the old school look and feel of the place won’t change. “Everything stays the same,” he said. “You might just see more things you want to eat here.”
“I just want to make it family,’ Powell said, gesturing down the counter to Goldstein. “Like he did.”
redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331 or yelling his name loudly as he walks by. Do you value the news coverage provided by redbankgreen? Please become a financial supporter if you haven’t already. Click here to set your own level of monthly or annual contribution.
