The Clove & Hoof is Using Facebook to Open in Ballard

There could be a new butchery/charcuterie/beer store coming to Ballard. Whether or not it actually happens depends on whether or not Michael Laroche and his business partner Nathan Thomas can raise enough money. They're leveraging their social media to gage interest in hopes of attracting investors. So far, they've got about half the money they need. Says Laroche:

We know all the good farmers. We know all the right processors. We've been cooking and doing charcuterie for ages.

The two both come from the restaurant industry. Laroche named Poppy, The Rainier Club and the now shuttered Longshoreman's Daughter as past employers. More recently, however, he says:

I had a less optimal job in the butchery industry for a company that's kind of failing; we've always wanted to do it right.

The name of his future endeavor is The Clove & Hoof, which is gaining some nice traffic on Facebook after just a few days.

Laroche compares The Clove & Hoof to The Meat Hook in Brooklyn and Fleicher's.

We're going to do completely whole animals. We're going to make everything. If we have bacon it's from the pigs that we get from our farmers. It's going to be completely transparent. We'll be able to tell you who the farmer is at any point and show you where we get the animals slaughtered. There will be nothing coming in and out of boxes, nothing coming in from [distributors]. So, we'll have fresh meat, charcuterie that we produce in-house, and then we just want to have that last manly component of beer.

Nothing wrong with that! If you want to help the guys out, you can "Like" them on Facebook.

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