COLUMBIA FALLS – Danny Hansen likes good beef and is a wizard with a smoker. For meat lovers, there’s not much else you need to know.
For eight years, Hansen and his wife Karla have operated Perfect Cuts on Third Avenue, garnering a loyal following and a reputation as the place to go for quality meat. Nearly all the beef and pork sold there is all natural and it’s as local as the Hansens can find – the pork’s from Flathead Valley and the beef’s from around the Northwest.
Customers also are welcome to bring in wild game and fish to be processed and smoked if desired. There are three large smokers in a room at Perfect Cuts that provide a pleasant wood smell all day. Danny Hansen will throw turkeys, salmon, venison, chunks of beef and about any other acceptable meats in his smokers and turn them into delicacies.
Just don’t ask him to deal with meat that travels across the country. He’s a local kind of guy.
“I don’t do anything with the Southern beef,” Hansen said. “I don’t think the quality’s the same.”
After building the store themselves, the Hansens opened Perfect Cuts in October of 2001. At the time, they had one smoker and no staff. Karla said she and her husband worked 16- to 18-hour days at the beginning. Their hours have since decreased to 10 or 12 hours, six days a week.
Today they have a staff of three, not including themselves. Each worker is highly adept at meat cutting, displaying ample knowledge of the animals’ anatomy. They also alternate operating the smokers. For the Hansens, it’s a relief to have a staff they can trust to leave in charge if they want to go on a vacation, though they never do.
The Hansens and their employees are always busy. If people aren’t coming in to shop, they’re often coming in with meat to be processed and smoked, especially during hunting season. On a recent Thursday morning, Danny Hansen was trimming chunks of beef for sandwich meats, like pastrami and corned beef. Those sandwich meats are yet another addition to Hansen’s constantly evolving repertoire.
The retail selection at Perfect Cuts is generous. Various beef and pork steaks are on display, along with jerkies, sausages, lamb chops, “to-die-for” bacon, Hutterite chickens and other meats. Though you can never go wrong with a juicy ribeye or tenderloin, butcher Sonny Johnson said the flatiron steaks are the shop’s trademark and most popular cuts.
“We can cut them for six hours a day and still run out at night,” Johnson said. “They’re incredible.”
There are also jarred goodies made special for the Hansens and emblazoned with Perfect Cuts labels. The jars include pickled garlic, cheese dip, habanero-stuffed olives, zinfandel tri-tip marinade, barbecue sauce and many other treats.
Though Perfect Cuts offers a variety of seasonings and meat rubs, the prize is Karla Hansen’s special seasoning. A blend of 27 herbs and spices, the meat seasoning is sold in Ziploc bags for $2. It doesn’t contain monosodium glutamate.
“I can sell it for $2 like this,” Karla Hansen said, referring to the Ziplocs. “If I package it, I have to sell it for $6 like everybody else.”
Perfect Cuts has grown in popularity largely through word of mouth. Karla said customers regularly come from as far away as Havre, Libby and even out of state. Not only does the meat have a reputation for quality, the store itself is spotless and tidy. Because the employees thoroughly sanitize and sterilize everything at the end of each day, there isn’t a musty meat odor.
“It’s a nice, clean little shop,” Karla said. “It doesn’t smell like a meat shop.”
And it’s an inviting environment. The workers clearly enjoy each other’s company and are all congenial with customers.
“We’re like a big family here,” Karla said. “We all work together. When one hurts, we all hurt.”
Perfect Cuts is located in Columbia Falls at 1030 Third Ave. East and can be reached at (406) 892-3718.