Narrator: This is where some
of America's best restaurants
get their steak.
Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors
supplies thousands of restaurants
from New York to Las Vegas.
It has the largest dry-aging room in the world.
One family has run this business for
over a century,
and Pat is the third-generation owner.
Right now, there's well over $10 million of meat in here.
Narrator: He brought in a whole new approach
to the business.
Selling high-end meat to both fancy restaurants,
but also to burger chains like Shake Shack.
Pat's team produces 250,000 pounds of meat every night.
It's kind of like Jenga,
where you're moving one piece,
and another piece comes in.
It takes years to develop an army like we have.
Narrator: Their weapons?
Butcher's knives, band saws, and meat grinders.
So how does Pat LaFrieda manage to supply everything
from $3 smash burgers to $200 steaks?
And how did he turn a humble butcher shop
into a $270 million meat empire?
Pat only buys prime
and choice beef, the highest USDA grades.
These cuts have the most marbling, which adds flavor.
So how does all this pricey steak get to kitchens?
Pat: Chefs normally know what they want to order,
what they need to order,
after that dinner service.
And then they really
want the product delivered the next morning,
a few hours later.
Narrator: That's why shifts here
start around 6 p.m.
And then it's a race against the clock.
Some kitchens need these steaks by the following morning.
Pat: The only way to work
through the night is to have cohesion.
As a former military guy myself,
building that team, it takes time.
Narrator: Many steaks start in this dry-aging room,
which holds 15,000 of Pat's finest cuts.
It has to stay at 36 degrees Fahrenheit and 80% humidity.
Otherwise, everything will spoil or freeze,
and Pat could lose millions.
As the meat ages,
moisture evaporates and muscles break down.
But we know that the dry-aging process
is working when we see
that the protein has sunken in from the bone and the fat.
Narrator: Workers wheel the meat
to the portioning section.
Master butchers go to work
on everything from tomahawk steaks
to New York strips,
slicing them exactly the way each restaurant wants.
Pat trained most of these butchers himself.
Pat: The ones you made this morning were beautiful.
There really are no butcher schools.
Restaurants will ask me,
"Pat, where do you get your butchers from?"
Like, we don't get our butchers.
We make our butchers.
Narrator: They only need a few tools to get the job done.
Pat: In most people's hands,
you're going to see boning knives.
With this, you could basically do the whole job
until you get to cutting the steak across,
and that's where you want a scimitar knife.
And what makes this a butcher knife
as opposed to a chef's knife?
We have a protective corner.
Narrator: But certain cuts
require using a band saw.
It's ideal for slicing through bone
or doing high-volume orders as fast as possible.
And only master butchers can operate them.
Pat: It's probably a good two and a half years
before they would even get to a band saw.
Narrator: Next, workers load everything onto trucks.
If a customer is local,
Pat's team can deliver within a few hours.
The Press Club Grill in New York City gets thousands
of pounds of meat from LaFrieda per week.
Owner and chef Franklin Becker
showed us how he prepares a boneless rib eye.
Franklin: Yeah, I try to season it fairly aggressively
and let all that salt kind of penetrate
into the pores of the meat.
And then I'm going onto an infrared broiler.
This steak doesn't take long.
It's pretty quick.
Narrator: In just five to six minutes,
you'll get a juicy medium rare.
Franklin: So you see that fat starting to caramelize, OK.
If you let it rest,
then the meat's going to kind of reabsorb all those juices.
And when you slice it,
there's going to be nothing left really on the board.
That's when a steak is perfectly rested.
That's when you know that you've cooked it right.
Narrator: One of the most legendary steakhouses
in New York City,
Peter Luger, has been sourcing meat cuts
from LaFrieda since 1998.
Peter Luger has garnered its reputation as a New York City institution
frankly due to a lot of hard work.
I think it starts with our attention to detail in selecting
each piece of meat that comes into this restaurant.
We're really about letting
the highest-quality steak
we can buy shine
with just a little salt and a tiny bit of butter.
We cook the steak to order
and we send it out sizzling hot to the guests.
That's it.
Narrator: But LaFrieda
doesn't just supply fancy restaurants.
Back in 2004, Pat bought the company's first burger machine
to make patties for a new fast casual chain
that was about to open: Shake Shack.
Pat created a special blend without trimmings
or added fat for the new chain.
Shake Shack still uses Pat's recipes today,
and LaFrieda still supplies patties for more than
100 of its locations.
Every burger starts on the main floor.
2,000 pounds of Angus beef
are dumped onto conveyor belts.
Machines spray them with diluted vinegar that kills
potential germs.
Other machines grind and mix the meat.
The ground meat goes into patty-forming machines,
which can make 200 different blends.
Workers need to move fast.
The company pumps out over 200,000 burgers a day.
It gets pretty hectic
and frustrating sometimes when it gets overload.
But every single day is just a different challenge.
Narrator: Mel's Butcher Box in Tenafly, New Jersey,
is one of Pat's loyal customers.
Owner Melanie Landano
orders up to 100 pounds of burgers from him a day.
Melanie: For the restaurant,
we use the original Pat LaFrieda blend,
which is a short-rib/brisket blend.
For special events,
if a customer requests
dry-aged brisket burgers, we get that.
Some people request a 45-day dry-aged burger.
Anything I want, Pat will make for us.
Once we put it on the grill, we leave it on the grill.
And a lot of people like to press on the meat.
Then all the juices come out.
What I do, I flip it once,
I leave it and let it cook,
and then I let it rest here.
Narrator: On top of her daily customers,
Mel also cooks burgers for four local schools.
On Monday morning alone,
she grills over 200 patties for students.
Melanie: So today, we're probably going to cook five
or six cases in one hour.
So it's burger-palooza.
Narrator: Mel also buys LaFrieda skirt steaks,
rib-eye cheese steaks, and meatballs.
Melanie: Here's our LaFrieda meatballs.
This is going with this penne and meatball.
Just heating up.
This is his grandfather's recipe, and they're delicious.
I'm Italian, so I don't use any other meatball
but Pat LaFrieda meatball.
If I have no time to make my own.
Narrator: Family recipes
are still an important part of LaFrieda's.
Pat's great-grandfather opened
a Brooklyn butcher shop in 1922.
After moving the operation
to Manhattan's growing meatpacking district,
Pat's grandfather took over
and started Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors.
Pat started learning the job as a child.
Pat: My favorite times were cutting meat
with my grandfather to my left and my dad to my right.
Narrator: But Pat's father insisted
his son try a different career first.
He didn't want me to work those hours.
He didn't want me in that environment.
Narrator: Pat spent nine months working as a stockbroker
but then ditched that job to join the family business.
A decade later, Pat would be named CEO.
Pat: And now my dad can't wait for my son to go off to college
and come back and run the family business.
Narrator: When Pat joined in 1994,
the company had 44 restaurant customers.
Now they have 1,600
and are posting annual sales of $270 million.
Pat: We are several hundred times larger than we were.
Narrator: In 2021,
Pat opened this new $20 million facility.
To keep such a massive operation running,
Pat has to be more than a manager, though.
He does everything.
He comes work in production. He works with us.
He goes on the table,
he goes to see customers,
he oversees everything.
Pat: It's something I love to do,
and I do a lot of my best thinking while I'm cutting meat.
To me, it's a relaxing time.
Narrator: Even after this much growth,
Pat thinks there's room for more.
Pat: This facility produces
about 250,000 pounds of product a night
and with the capacity to probably triple or quadruple that.
So we've built it with the space
to be able to expand from there.