Porcellino’s. Curb Market. Puck Food Hall. Salt|Soy. These businesses have more in common than just being now-gone Memphis favorites. 

They’re also where Buster’s Butcher co-owner Brad McCarley cut his teeth in the restaurant industry and left his mark with memorable food and concepts.

McCarley joins me on this two-part Sound Bites episode to share his journey from rock climber to recording artist to restaurant Renaissance man. 

He moved to Memphis in 2015 and took a job as an apprentice butcher at Porcellino’s, a butcher shop and cafe in Brookhaven Circle that closed in 2018.

Making $11 an hour, he said he got “super into” butchery and treated the experience like a college class. He was eventually promoted to head of charcuterie, which is one of the best job titles I’ve ever heard. 

Next for McCarley came the food hall era (my words) where he worked at the 409 South Main space through several iterations — some might remember South Main Market or Puck Food Hall. 

“The food hall is probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done,” he said. We talk more about what worked and didn’t work at the Downtown venue, and what McCarley learned from the experience. 

On the podcast, we also talked about what came after the food hall’s closure in 2020 (including Salt|Soy) leading to McCarley opening Buster’s Butcher in August 2023.

He shared details on the shop’s carefully curated offerings, like rare and imported cheeses and locally-sourced meats. 

We talked about the most popular items, underrated snacks and specialty foods made in-house, like the guanciale and McCarley’s mom’s chicken salad. He spilled the beans on the East Memphis butcher shop’s Manic Monday deals and “cheese you can’t get anywhere else.”

Listen to part one and two of the interview below.