Lindley Locker takes pride in custom processing, meat sales

     Among the things Marcee Lindley and Danielle Silver have learned, in 10 years of owning Lindley Locker in Center Junction, is that the types of pork cuts people want seem limitless.

     “We can cut that hog in probably 40 minutes or less,” Lindley said.

     Dividing the cuts into the different varieties of pork products, however, is another matter.

     “It almost takes as long as a cow,” she said. “because you’re doing so many different steps.”

     That kind of attention to detail is what keeps customers coming back for the locker’s custom processing and retail meat sales.

     “We are mainly a custom locker,” Lindley said. “You bring a cow (or hog) to me, and we cut it how you want it. We try to accommodate.”

     Lindley Locker began when Marcee’s mother and father, Judy and Harley, built it in 1978.

     “They ran it until 10 years ago, when Danielle and I bought it,” she said. “Judy and Harley were ready to retire. They couldn’t sell it for quite a while, so I just asked Danielle one day, ‘Should we go buy the locker?’ 

     “We’ve been here ever since.”

     Word has gotten around. Lindley Locker not only gets plenty of repeat customers, they come from all over the country.

     “We have Texas customers,” Lindley said. “They come up every year to visit family, stop here and fill coolers up before they go home. We have people from Colorado that do that too.”

     Lindley said beef products are the most popular at the locker, but pork comes in second. It processes many kinds of animals – sheep, lambs, goats, deer – and more.

     “We do everything,” she said.

     It keeps them busy; as evidenced by the cooler where the carcasses await processing.

     “It’s bumper to bumper in there,” she said. “We’ve been crazy (busy). We’ve been down here on Saturdays and Sundays.”

     When it comes to pork products, Lindley said smoked pork chops and bacon are among the locker’s most popular pork products. One of the products that has emerged is cottage bacon.

     “You bone out the front shoulder, and roll it up like you do a rolled rump roast,” Lindley said. “You tie it so it’s round, and then you cook it, cut the strings off and slice it, and it’s just big round pieces of bacon. It’s perfect BLT bacon.”

     And there’s more.

     “We pretty much make anything,” she said. “We’ve made honey barbecue pork sticks for a guy.”

     Satisfied customers regularly return to the locker.

     “We have a lot of repeat customers. We keep their cut records,” Lindley said. “The next hog comes in from them, and we pull up the cut record, go over it with them.”

     The locker takes special care that the products remain fresh.

     “Everything that comes in, goes in the cooler, it’s cut within that week, wrapped up and in the freezer,” she said. “Everything here is frozen. We cut it, wrap it, and that’s it. We double-wrap everything.”

     Meat products are also available for purchase at the locker, with available products and prices listed on a board.

     “We’re nowhere on the scale of Edgewood (Locker) or anything, but I don’t want to get there,” Lindley said. “This is enough.”