ABOUT US
Rain Shadow Meats is a full service butchery featuring all local meats, house made Charcuterie, and a custom curing room. We are centrally located in the Melrose Market at the base of Capitol Hill in Seattle.
Our mission is to bring back the local neighborhood butcher with an emphasis on whole animal butchery, education, and the creation of community. We work with local farms to provide farmers with a means to reach the public through our customers and to guarantee the highest quality products. Rain Shadow Meats will promote education and customer service by offering classes in meat and butchery, custom cuts, and special orders. Please ask if you have a personal request.
Come by the shop to visit and check out your local, neighborhood butcher. We welcome your questions and comments.
Russell Flint has over twenty years of experience with butchery and is most recently known for his culinary skills as the Sous Chef at the Boat Street Café. His restaurant background and strong interest in food education will be instrumental to your experience at Rain Shadow Meats.
RuSsell Flint
Russell Flint is a San Francisco native and has lived here in Seattle since 1990. He entered the Butchery industry in 1999 at Larry's Market where he helped customers and cleaned the shop at night. A few years later, he started at Whole Foods Market where he learned how to cut meat. In his 5 years at Whole Foods, he learned how to make sausage, cut chickens, pork, lamb and beef and truly see the importance of naturally raised meat. While at Whole Foods, he met Renee Erickson, owner of the Boat Street Cafe, a small french bistro in Seattle. This turned into a career change and a life long friendship. In 2004, he left the butchery world to cook as the Sous Chef for Renee. While at the the Boat Street, he continued his interest in butchery and learned how to break down and utilize the whole animal.
In the early part of 2009, Renee brought Russ to what is now the Melrose Market (at this time it was still a working auto body shop). Russ saw the potential and decided that it would be the perfect space for a butcher shop. The idea that the rest of the space would be filled with fellow like-minded food vendors seemed too good to pass up.
Rain Shadow Meats opened it doors in April of 2010 inside what is now the Melrose Market. A small 600 sq. foot triangular butcher shop for the neighborhood would quickly become a popular destination for many Seattle residents seeking well raised meats.
In 2013, Rain Shadow Meats expanded to the historic neighborhood of Pioneer Square. Russ has always felt that this neighborhood should be the center of our city and wanted to be part of the renaissance. The Pioneer Square shop has since closed in May 2018.