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These words appear in advertisements all the time:
hand-cut, handcrafted, hand-selected, custom made to your specifications. But
how often do you read a restaurant menu that references an in-house butcher? As
the Modern World continues to both streamline and industrialize so many aspects
of daily life, it’s refreshing to happen upon any experience, particularly
a dining experience, where care has been taken to actually hand-cut a portion
of meat long before it’s simply seasoned and cooked.
Driving the busy bypass just south of the Wright
Brothers National Memorial, you easily could pass JK’s Restaurant, not
knowing you have missed a unique establishment. What’s a locally owned
restaurant at the beach doing with its own in-house butcher? Think
Morton’s, Sullivan’s, Ruth’s Chris…fine steakhouses…
but is JK’s in the same league? You bet, it’s just even more special
because it’s staffed by career butcher Leon "Mac" Magruder, a beloved
Outer Banker.
So, how is it that a restaurant in the coastal village
of Kill Devil Hills could boast such a claim? It’s sheer luck that 20-year
Safeway grocery store veteran Mac Magruder decided to move his family to Nags
Head in the 1970s to live a quieter lifestyle. Thirty years later, this
gregarious 67-year-old "journeyman meat cutter," as Mac calls his trade, is
known far and wide for his skills and kindness along the Outer Banks.
Mac began his coastal tenure in 1973 working for
Richard Baer at the former Trading Post in Kill Devil Hills, an active local
grocery. For nearly a decade Mac pioneered a whole new level of meat cutting
and customer service on the Outer Banks, singularly raising the level of
quality a consumer could expect.
If you talk to Baer, most folks who live on the Outer
Banks "came on vacation and never went home again. That’s the same with
Mac," he says, "he had a vacation home and decided he wanted to bring his
family here full-time." Mac eventually became one of three managers for Baer,
alternately running the business on different shifts until Baer was forced to
downsize to curb costs as chain groceries began to dominate the beach. Shortly
after his departure, Mac met JK Norfleet, who founded the original JK’s in
1984. Thus began an almost 20-year collaboration of butcher and cook.
In Baer’s opinion, had Mac remained working in
the big cities around Baltimore and Washington, DC, he would easily have been
pulling down a six-figure income. "But he doesn’t care," says Baer, "it
was never about the money for Mac."
Baer tells of how he and Mike Daniels of the Wanchese
Fish Company drove a scrubbed-down 18-wheeler fish truck with Mac and his son,
Jeff, to pack up the Magruder household with Mac’s wife, Twila, and move
their things from Annapolis, Maryland to North Carolina. On the way up they had
to hot-wire the trailer lights to the truck battery because basically only
"spit and Band-Aids were holding the truck together," Baer says. They worked
through the night and drove back the next day, and Baer says, "Except for gas,
Mikey certainly didn’t charge Mac a thing for helping, and neither did I.
That’s the giving nature of the people on the Outer Banks, and Mac is one
of them. He’d do anything for you."
Stories of Mac’s thoughtfulness and generosity
abound. During a "blitz" of gray trout one year, he and a fishing pal caught 30
to 40 fish in a day, cleaned them and gave their catch away to their elderly
neighbors. A former volunteer fireman in Kill Devil Hills, he began his duty in
1974 because, as he says, "there were so few full-time residents here" and he
wanted to help the community.
Mac’s integrity is at the core of his restaurant
work. In the words of Norfleet, "He wouldn’t dare put something out there
that wasn’t proper (meaning a cut of meat to a customer), and that’s
a feat, because half the people (running restaurants) don’t know what a
good piece of beef is supposed to look like, feel like, and they don’t
know about aging beef or even why it should be aged." For those beef lovers new
to the subject, age breaks down membranes in the meat, resulting in tenderness
and flavor.
Mac learned his craft through a three-year
apprenticeship that began at age 17 with Safeway in Rockville, Maryland, the
town where he also grew up. His on-the-job training was interrupted when he was
drafted into active duty from the Naval Reserves. From 1955 through 1958, he
served at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and was eventually put in charge of
inventory control for a 550-person ship. Mac began meat cutting in the days
when whole sides of beef and lamb were broken down into the defined cuts. There
was no self-service; all orders were cut to order for the consumer. In the late
1970s, the apprenticeship requirement for meat cutters was done away with
because so much initial butchering was being handled at packing houses, a sign
of the industrialization of most common food sources. Now Mac cuts individual
steaks and chops from what’s called a "primal cut." For example, Mac cuts
individual New York strips from a whole strip about 30 inches long and 10
inches wide, weighing about 12 to 14 pounds, allowing him to ensure the size
and weight that a customer receives.
In Mac’s opinion, even if whole sides were still
available to purchase, JK’s would still buy the primal cuts for the
restaurant because the desired cuts of a higher end establishment come "from
the support muscles, not the working muscles.
 Beef chuck, chuck roast, stew beef, those
(tougher) cuts come from the locomotive muscles in the front part of the animal
that get worked all the time," he explains. The mid to hind quarters yield
muscles of support — like the tenderloin — and other cuts, such as
rib roasts and top butts that have more fat to them. The fat makes the beef or
lamb more tender, and thus more desirable for a restaurant customer.
John A. Watkins of Colington Harbour mostly tells
fishing stories about his meat-cutting friend, Mac. The two have been part of
the six-member Sanduners International Fishing Team for 33 years. This group of
longtime buddies is as competitive with each other about surf fishing as they
are with competing teams. According to Watkins, he "once had a plaque made for
Mac because he fished in a tournament and received zero points. It stated:
‘No more points than you caught, you should have gone bowling during that
tournament.’" Truth be told, Watkins just wanted to rub it in that Mac for
once fished poorly.
And truly, behind Mac’s outgoing, friendly
personality lies a perfectionist. Just as a sculptor might chisel a shape out
of a slab of marble, so might an expert meat cutter beautifully carve a side of
beef. Each task requires dexterity and a keen eye for assessing shape as a
whole. Although a resulting sculpture may become a part of a cherished
landscape or an intimate space in an art gallery, a hand-carved Frenched veal
chop can be of equal artistry, particularly when shaped and trimmed at the hand
of Mac Magruder.
Brothers John and Matt Homcy, owners of JK’s in
Kill Devil Hills, will both tell you they rely on Mac’s nearly 50-year
history carving meat, and that his skill is at the backbone of JK’s menu.
"The mix of having a talented butcher and serving classic American food is
helping our goal of becoming a destination restaurant on the East Coast," says
Matt.
Mac continues working a 30-hour week at JK’s
despite being past retirement age. "I really feels that I’m helping the
boys (the Homcy brothers) achieve what JK and I had from Day One," he says.
"And, for me personally, it gives me satisfaction to run into someone on the
street and have them comment on the New York strip that they had the other
night. I enjoy doing this so other people can enjoy a nice plate of food."
During his free time, Mac and Twila do a lot of
cooking together in between his fishing, yard work and shared time with three
grandchildren. The ultimate compliment for Mac may come from Norfleet, who in
his blunt ranch language states it best: "Mac’s just a hell of a good
guy." |
