Marlon’s Meat

Scammers

Don’t be fooled! This is the same business as
they have just changed their name after all of the recent scandal. Feel free to read my review of the Butchers, and how they were deceptive and pumped their meat full of fillers on that page.
What bothers me is that during this time, I bought meat here that I thought (and was lead to believe) was organic, hormone free and antibiotic free. That means alot to me. Look at this post about what they found out we were actually eating
… You might as well have bought meat at Price Chopper, for ¹⁄₈^th the price. Two chickens cost us $ 56.
Take the 3 and 4 star reviews here with a grain of salt. They are suspiciously all from first time or brand new reviewers. I do not trust this business AT ALL.

Before they decided to ruin their business through partnering with every «group buy» site in Toronto, they were actually a decent shop. I was happy with my purchases: the quality of the meat and the customer service were top-​notch.
Once we purchased two coupons in February from Buytopia ($ 100of organic meat for $ 50), everything changed. We called and placed our order and were super excited about receiving our delivery. When it didn’t show up on Saturday as promised, I called. They said they didn’t have any record of my order. I told the guy again what I wanted and he said it would go out for delivery the following Saturday.
This routine continued for 6 weeks. Finally, a lady personally delivered our order late one Wednesday night, after many phone calls and emails.
The quality was good and we were happy, having assumed they were trying to work out the kinks in their ordering system and thinking that they were probably deluged with orders from coupon-​buyers and simply weren’t prepared.
Then I saw that they were continuing to offer deals on other sites. Doing the math, I realized they were going to have a serious order fulfillment problem, unless they had a secret warehouse somewhere and access to a plethora of organic farmers.
We tried to place our second order in April and they said we should use the new form on their website. Well, we placed an order using the form. When that failed to be fulfilled, we emailed. Then we called. Then, 3 weeks later, we received an email response saying they are no longer able to fulfill orders until they re-​open (something about a failed health inspection?).
Having read the reviews here about deteriorating quality, I simply want a refund from Buytopia for the coupon we didn’t use. I feel bad that maybe the Butchers were coerced by the coupon sites into doing deals and didn’t read the fine print. But also I am confused as to why they would continue to do these deals once they realized it would be impossible for them to handle order fulfillment and maintain high-​quality product.

I visited the Butchers twice, first time, the place was closed, even though the website said it would be opened. The second time, only kebobs and burgers left. The kebobs was ok. The burgers was mediocre. Someone suggests that I order online for faster service and better selections. Noone ever respond to my email. Now, the website said the store is closed til August… oy…sketchy much.
My first bad and horrible experience with coupons.

So far I am unimpressed. Every time I contact them there is some new rule to using these coupons. First time I went in it was «not at Easter» even though it was advertised they were open exclusively for buytopia customers. About a month ago I went in again then it was «Not on weekends».
I even have an email exchange with the shop where I was told I could just email in my order. So I tried three weeks ago. When I sent a follow up email to see where my order was at, and received an auto response that you could go in but couldn’t order your meat online until the end of June.
This is totally unacceptable as none of these rules were specified when I purchased the coupon by the butchers, or buytopia. I would like a refund.

aside from the huge customer service issues here, i was very unhappy with the meat i received (the chicken had dirt and human hair on it!)
i did a bit of digging and calling around and found out that the ‘naturally’ raised meat from here (they get it from acadian beef) is still *factory farmed* and still corn fed (rather than grass)! the only difference is that it is antibiotic/​hormone free.
to me, factory farmed is NOT naturally raised. is not even in the same league as the much cheaper healthy butcher’s naturally raised stuff, which is humanely treated and is almost at the same level as organic. the butchers is basically taking advantage of the ambiguity of the term and selling meat that is not that much better from standard super market stuff, except they are massively overcharging for it.
more here about their meat quality:
oh and if you still want the meat, good luck trying to actually get it, what with all their changing rules and random store hours. this says it all:

Revision!!!
I needed to do this, as this business is really annoyed me. I was patient enough to wait during their renovation, and placed a brand new order via email. In late October I got an email, saying that I can pick up my order… in DECEMBER!!!
Ok, I was pissed, but decided to wait for it… and guess what, comes December and exactly ONE DAY before the actual pick up date, I got an email saying that they could not fulfill my order and would refund my money.
Very dissapoined and pissed and angry beyond belief… I tried to be as patient as I can, but this is crossing the line.
To be fair, their quality of meat is good, especially if you CAN (that’s a big CAN) redeem your voucher. Without the voucher, I would definitely NOT GOING to this shop at all.
If the owner of the buthcers can read this, please refund my money… I just sent you an email asking for my refund.

I’ve had pretty good service here. I do find the selection a bit lacking, but I can only get there at the end of the day most days, so I’d think that the selection at that time of day would be minimal. I haven’t had any concerns with the quality of meat, and I’ve tried their pork chops, steaks, chicken, ground meats…

I went back last weekend, only because I had a $ 150 coupon left.
I was actually shocked at what I saw. The inventory was what I’d call limited, the last time I was there, but now, it’s actually laughable.
All they had was a huge amount of chicken breasts, chicken legs, and whole chickens (that worked out to be around $ 25 EACH!) over flowing in one display case …
In the other other case, was a small pile of sad looking (& very expensive) rack of ribs. i wouldn’t buy the ribs, as they didn’t look very meaty nor substantial, but I was in awe, when I saw a guy ask for one, they weighed in, and said the price to him, $ 62.00! That’s for ONE rack of ribs. Unreal.
I also made note of of 2 cuts of a some pork ends. I’m assuming they’d be used for stewing, as they looked like huge hunks of bone.
They didn’t even have any stewing beef during this visit.
There was absolutely nothing else — the coolers, the fridge, all completely empty! In fact, the cooler, had a big white curtain over it, as to say ‘don’t look at the emptiness’.
I walked out with $ 100 worth of chicken, and will NEVER EVER return.

Lets hope I don’t butcher the review on Meat! Bad joke.
The meat is fresh, the selection of cuts is great, and there is always plenty of stock on hand. The second most important aspect of the butcher is to have every size and cut in stock, otherwise you will loose some customers. They also carry a wide variety of sausages, chicken, veal, and lamb chops. They have a great frozen section if your looking to stock up for the winter, or just have a little extra on hand.
You get what you pay for. Service is great, and efficient. The Butcher will fulfill any special order or cut you may have, so do not hesitate to ask.