WEST RIDGE — On Monday, Erv Muller owner of Muller Meats at 2439 W. Peterson Ave. for the last 25 years, pulled the string for the store's neon "open" sign for the last time before heading off to his next adventure — and a party full of community members waiting to honor the "neighborhood institution," as Ald. Patrick O'Connor (40th) said.
"I love my job," said Muller, 68. "The customers are great, it's been wonderful."
Muller, who's been serving the West Ridge neighborhood for the last 40 years since taking over the former Ken's Food Mart in 1977, said it had become "hard to make money" in the butcher business due to various rising costs and the dips in revenue between major holidays.
"That's why all the shops are closing," he said Monday, wrapping a customer's meat in butcher paper.
So, for the last time at his family owned shop, he sliced bacon, chatted with customers about how their families were and took his time to remember each and every person who made his butcher shop dream come true over the years.
Linze Rice says the closing is bittersweet for the neighborhood:
It's bittersweet, he said, but it's not the end for Muller or his legacy with meats — in his next gig they just won't be his own.
On Tuesday, the day after closing, Muller will start fresh at the meat counter at a brand new Mariano's in Northbrook.
"I'm excited, I'll be doing the same thing only I'll get paid," he said, chuckling.
He said he's looking forward to his next venture, a much-needed break from the 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. shifts he's been used to at this shop.
Still, he said he wouldn't trade the last four decades in West Ridge for anything.
As fistfuls of loyal regulars passed the glassy front door's "Muller Time" sign entering the white-walled shop, the sound of a mooing cow rang out each time — a silly, but familiar sound to the shop's patrons who came by to say goodbye and buy the store clean.
"What have you got left?" was a common theme among customers.
The alderman's brother, Rob, and sister-in-law, Mary, stopped by the shop to share misty-eyed stories of gratitude with Muller and to pick up his famous meat for a barbecue in his honor after closing time.
"It's like someone in our family is moving away," Mary O'Connor said, adding that she'd been crying before coming into the store, and sniffling as she talked about how Muller's name was always a part of every list in preparation for a family gathering. "It's always, 'OK Who's going to Erv's?'"
Now her family will have to go elsewhere for Thanksgiving for the first time in years. Muller said he made and sold 450 pounds of stuffing every year from his small storefront.
Muller handing off one last haul to chef Simon Werner of Hopleaf in Andersonville. [DNAinfo/Linze Rice]
Rob O'Connor said Muller kept meticulous records, so much so that when they wanted to know what their mother had bought for an occasion as far back as the 1970s, Muller could look it up exactly.
"We've depended on him forever because he's always been there for us," Mary said.
Her husband said that when Muller announced he was closing, he called O'Connor's mother, one of Muller's many "loyalists," to let her know over the phone before she read it online or heard it from someone else.
"Now that's something only a family member would do," O'Connor said.
In an email to residents, Ald. O'Connor said, "We wanted to say thank you to Erv Muller for not only being a great butcher but also all the extras he did making a trip to his shop well worth the stop."
Simon Werner, a chef at Hopleaf bar in Andersonville, also stopped by to bid Muller one final farewell and pick up some fresh cut meats.
Werner came for Muller's famous brisket, but they had been gobbled up by neighborhood fans who'd long ordered in advance. He settled for two whole chickens and tilapia steaks he planned to smoke himself later that day, he said.
It's been a regular stop off for meats among his co-workers, especially before a group cookout, Werner said.
Anthony Harris, an ex-convict on parole who said he's worked at Muller's shop "on and off" since 2006, said after he was released from Menard Correctional Facility, Muller gave him a place to work and live in the shop's downstairs basement.
"Anybody who works for me you can trust," Muller said of Harris.
Harris, who said his father was also a butcher, said Muller has been a pillar of strength not only for him, but for the entire community.
"He looks out for the whole neighborhood, that's my big homie right there, he taught me a whole lot," Harris said. "He believed in me, and I believed in him, too."
Anthony Harris, an ex-convict who lives downstairs at the shop, said Muller is his "big homie" who never gave up on him. He is seen here taking pictures down from the walls on Muller's Meats last day. [DNAinfo/Linze Rice]
Muller also played a voicemail left by a longtime patron for those in the shop Monday afternoon, saying the outpouring of love and support from his customers has made for an emotional last few days.
His days in the meat business go back to 1963, when he was 16 years old and working at National Tea Co., a grocery store. Two years later, when he was 18, he said they finally gave him the coveted meat counter apprenticeship that'd he'd been eyeing.
Muller said his mother had never eaten a steak.
"It just looked like a nice job, it really did," Muller said. "I was young, and it just looked like a nice job. I wanted to do it, and I didn't know anything about meat."
In 1966, he was drafted into the Army, where after 20 weeks of training he and 49 other soldiers were flown across the country to ready for the Vietnam War. Of those 50 soldiers, Muller said he and one other person were chosen to stay back in the States.
He said he was told the Army needed a cook who could use a bandsaw.
"I protected the West Coast, nobody got through," Muller said, laughing.
When he returned in 1968, he went back to work at National until it was sold and closed. He then worked at Fred's Finer Foods in Evanston for a year in the mid-'70s before settling in at Ken's Food Mart, a grocery store at 2405 W. Ardmore Ave. in West Ridge.
There he worked the meat counter until he bought the place from its owner, renaming the store Lucky Foods Inc. until he, too, had to close the store in 1993 due to rising costs.
That same year, he opened Muller's Meats at its beloved Peterson Avenue digs, where he boasts he was both owner and "journeyman meat cutter" on the new resume his youngest daughter recently helped him put together.
Now Muller is about to wear a new hat, a Mariano's hat, when he ties on his apron and reaches for the sharp blade of a cleaver the next time a customer comes to him looking for the best cut of a ribeye.
He said he knows it will be different, but he hopes that slowly, but surely, he'll learn the names of his new customers like he did the old.
"You know, in some stores you get in line, they call the number? Here I call the name," he said. "You don't even need a number here, I'll know who's next and what they want."
Until then, Muller said he wants to thank everyone for their patronage over the years, and hopes to see some familiar faces when Mariano's in Northbrook opens Aug. 25.
To his patrons who call him family, "I love them all, and it's been a great run."
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