Our Story

Ehran Ostrreicher, Homestead Meats' owner and founder, grew up in Tel Aviv, Israel with the traditional Mediterranean-style approach to food — everything was fresh, local, seasonal and unprocessed.  After graduating from Columbia College with a degree in film studies and making his home in Chicagoland, he sought out the kind of food he had grown up with.

 

He developed relationships with small family-owned Illinois farms and studied whole-animal butchery and charcuterie as a way to provide the best meats for his own family.  As his knowledge and passion grew, he realized that his adopted hometown of Evanston, Illinois would embrace a local meat shop that offered products that were ethically sourced, environmentally responsible and exceptionally flavorful.

 

Ehran opened Homestead Meats in the summer of 2014 and is proud to serve a community that that shares many of the values that inspired the shop. 

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Who Shops at Homestead Today?

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Over the years, Homestead has attracted an interesting mix of customers: serious home cooks, people concerned about how their food is raised, longtime supporters of local businesses and people who grew up in countries where shopping at a neighborhood butcher is part of everyday life. Some come looking for a custom cut or a hard-to-find specialty. Others simply want really good meat.

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Read more about why people shop at a local butcher.