VOLGA — Have you got a hankering for some great meat, but don’t know where to find it? Well, you can rest easy: All it takes is a short trip down an alley in Volga — really! — where you’ll find Back Alley Meats.
The business, owned by Brookings resident Dan Kriese and managed by his daughter Kyla Kriese, opened May 24 at 111 Astrachan Ave. It’s been hopping ever since as people come and go, checking out the newest addition to Volga’s business community.
“We’re a new, small meat shop. We’ve been busy, and we appreciate everybody’s patience with us as we’ve been very busy with limited staff,” Dan Kriese told the Brookings Register in a recent interview.
Anything new always gets more attention, but the sheer diversity of Back Alley Meats’ selections is certainly a huge factor that attracts customers.
The business’s offerings include fresh meats such as chicken, beef and pork. There are some frozen options for those meats as well, but fresh is a big focus for Dan Kriese. On top of that, there’s a variety of bratwursts on hand, along with summer sausages and snack sticks. Deli meats and cheeses can be found, too, as can salads, fruits, produce, buns, seasonings and sauces.
“(We’re) kind of your one-stop shop for meat,” Dan Kriese said.
Customers will also have a role when it comes to product selection.
“We’re going to be, at some point, probably up around that neighborhood of 40 different flavors of brats,” Dan Kriese said. “We’ll have brats on a rotating basis, so people can try different flavors they may not think of, or want to try at a different point in time — and if those brats become popular, we’ll keep those as a main brat as well.”
Understandably, fresh steak has been one of the shop’s biggest sellers.
“They are fresh-cut daily — that’s not something I think we can get, really, around the area in a retail setting,” he said. “Also, if anybody requests it, a steak cut a certain thickness — we’re more than happy to provide that as well.”
Even better, Back Alley Meats offers a rare kind of steak — well, rare for around here.
“Probably one of our most popular products in the fresh meat case has been the teres major steak,” Dan Kriese said. “That’s a steak that comes from the front end of cattle — it’s a muscle that’s not used very often, so it’s almost as tender as beef tenderloin.”
He continued, “Nobody around here offers it; to my knowledge, we’re the first in the area to offer that. It’s a very, very good piece of meat — very tender, very flavorful. People that have tried it have been back for more several times since we’ve opened.”
And, hey, if you can’t devour your steak the same day? The shop offers a solution for that, too.
“We try to provide the customer service nobody else is providing. If you buy a steak and you’re not going to cook it today or tomorrow, we’ll offer to vacuum seal it for free,” Dan Kriese said. “That’s been a good thing with people.”
Let’s not forget about the snack sticks. They, too, are popular — to the point that Dan Kriese relayed the story of one very zealous customer.
“I had one customer tell me that, from Volga to Brookings is 6 miles, the snack sticks are six to a package and when he got home he didn’t have any left.”
What brought Back Alley Meats to Volga? Why not Brookings, or Bruce, or another nearby town? Part of it had to do with the price of the building it now inhabits — it was available at a “great price,” Dan Kriese said.
“Retail space availability in Brookings is expensive, and to try to keep prices competitive — I didn’t want to have to raise our prices just to be able to sell products and cover the overheads,” he explained.
Beyond that, though, there’s something else that’s both tangible and intangible.
“I feel like businesses in smaller towns are more personable — you have that small-town feeling, you have that small-town atmosphere, the small-town pride,” Dan Kriese said. “Like our slogan says, ‘Small-town quality, big-city selection.’ Our quality is going to come first, and I think having a business in the Volga community, all of the residents that have had interaction with us have been nothing but supportive of it.
“They’re glad we’re here, and that just makes me know that our decision to open shop here was the right one,” he finished.
Dan Kriese said he grew up hunting pretty much his entire life, and that his family always processed their own wild game.
“My grandpa always seemed like he was always smoking something … I kind of thought to myself, ‘You know, I need to learn how to do this.’ I started smoking some meat on my own and continued doing wild game processing, then did it for some friends,” Kriese recounted.
He said his friends, impressed by his skills, encouraged him to start a business. He added to his already-formidable base of knowledge through classes at South Dakota State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. To top it all off, Kriese is also a member of the South Dakota Association of Meat Processors and National Association of Meat Processors.
“We’re always striving to look how we can do things better and provide better service for everybody,” he said.
His new venture in Volga opens up options people haven’t had for years.
“The grocery store here in Volga closed probably about eight years ago, and besides a couple other retailers in the area, there hasn’t been anywhere else to purchase fresh meats, produce and stuff in the Volga area. This is something that we want to offer not only to the Volga area, but area-wide. Everybody is welcome,” Kriese said.
It goes without saying that customers are important, but he wants them to become more than just someone who buys meat products from Back Alley Meats.
“We want to make sure we’re making new friends in the business as well; there’s already been several repeat customers — they’re friends,” Kriese said. “That’s what I want people to think of when they come in here is, ‘Going to my friend’s meat shop.’ When they leave here, I want them to walk out of the door with a smile (knowing) they got the best service, the best quality products they can get for a very fair and competitive price.”
In closing, he made a promise.
“We’re going to be growing, we’re going to be offering new products continuously. I would say we’re never going to stop growing; we’re always going to be offering new products,” he said. “Our service is going to be top-notch — you’ll always be greeted with a smile.”
— Contact Mondell Keck at mkeck@brookingsregister.com.
