# Do you know what a meat "locker" is, and why it's called that?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-a-meat-locker-is-and-why-its-called-that/478820
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [December 27, 2008, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-a-meat-locker-is-and-why-its-called-that/478820 "2008-12-27T06:33:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@LadyMack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LadyMack)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2008, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-a-meat-locker-is-and-why-its-called-that/478820/21 "2008-12-28T16:57:52Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#):
>
> I still call it a locker. My parents used one when I was a kid, in the days before everyone had big freezers. They’d buy meat by the quarter or half. The meat was stored in a locker at the place where the processing was done. Think of it like a bank, and your locker as a safe deposit box. When you wanted a few pounds of your meat, you’d get it from the locker, take it home and put it in your refrigerator. It was cheaper to buy it that way, even with the locker fee added in. I don’t know if the meat was better than the meat in the grocery store.
>
> ETA: It was called a locker because that’s where you locked up (stored) the meat. I never went inside, but it’s possible that the storage spaces looked like school lockers.
What she said.
When I was a kid, there was a Meat Locker on main street. Very small place, they didn’t process deer at the time. The lockers were the metal baskets in large framework, kept in the Freezer room. Each basket slid out and had a lip that you could put your own lock on. Most people didn’t have or couldn’t afford a home freezer.
When that business moved to a larger building, they started processing all sorts of meats, but only used the baskets to store wrapped orders until the owners would pick it all up at once to take home.
That place is out of business now, and the remaining one in that area is called a Locker Plant.
I still call that sort of place a Locker, and a regular meat store The Butcher’s.
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### Author:  [@Girl\_Hermit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_Hermit)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2008, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-a-meat-locker-is-and-why-its-called-that/478820/22 "2008-12-29T01:51:53Z")
**1) What do you call the place where you want to get better-than-grocery-store meat?**
The deli.
**2) What do you call the place that will kill and/or process your cow/deer/pig?**
The abitoire.
**3) If your answer to either 1) or 2) is “locker”, did you know why it was called that?**
I have never heard the word “locker” used to mean anything regarding meat. Unless it’s the men’s change room at the gym and meant as a joke.
**4) Where are you (or, where were you when you came to know the name of that dead meat place)?**
Ontario, Canada
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### Author:  [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2008, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-a-meat-locker-is-and-why-its-called-that/478820/23 "2008-12-29T16:11:31Z")
1. _Butcher shop_ in general, the actual business name (e.g. Rosen’s Kosher Meats) wherever I happen to be living.
2. The place that kills your beast of preference is an _abbatoir_, _slaughterhouse_, or simply the local live poultry market. The place that converts your already dead but still intact deer (turkey, elk, etc.) into manageable cuts is a _processor_.
3. Doesn’t apply to me. I grew up in the northeast US, where a “meat locker” is a large refrigerated room where sides of meat or whole carcasses are stored before being parcelled out into smaller cuts. Supermarkets, butcher shops, and better restaurants have a meat locker.
4. Chicago area and New York area, historically.
5. My favorite animal product these days is cheese.
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2008, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-a-meat-locker-is-and-why-its-called-that/478820/24 "2008-12-29T17:21:30Z")
1. What do you call the place where you want to get better-than-grocery-store meat?
Butcher
2. What do you call the place that will kill and/or process your cow/deer/pig?
Processor
3. Where are you (or, where were you when you came to know the name of that dead meat place)?
The midwest: Indiana/Michigan/Illinois
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### Author:  [@hellpaso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hellpaso)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2008, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-a-meat-locker-is-and-why-its-called-that/478820/25 "2008-12-29T17:28:43Z")
1–meat market
2–slaughterhouse/processor
3–always thought a “meat locker” was a walk-in freezer where the meat was stored–not
the business itself. “It’s so cold you could hang meat in there!”
4–west TN, north MS, west TX, south TX
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### Author:  [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2008, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-a-meat-locker-is-and-why-its-called-that/478820/26 "2008-12-29T17:41:17Z")
1. Butcher shop
2. The meat processor guy
3. I didn’t answer locker for either, but I always thought a meat locker was the storage freezer at the butcher’s where the meat was kept. Also, I’m pretty sure Peter got locked in Sam’s meat freezer on the Brady Bunch once.
4. New York
5. Does anyone have a good method for roasting eye of round? I made one at Christmas, and wasn’t thrilled with it.
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### Author:  [@BigNik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigNik)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2008, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-a-meat-locker-is-and-why-its-called-that/478820/27 "2008-12-29T21:01:19Z")
1. Butcher’s shop
2. Abattoir
3. Sydney, NSW.
4. No, but when I was eight I remember that a friend’s mother did.
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### Author:  [@Kalypso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalypso)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2008, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-what-a-meat-locker-is-and-why-its-called-that/478820/28 "2008-12-29T21:07:59Z")
1. House of Beef
2. House of Beef
3. answer wasn’t “locker”
4. Oakdale, CA
5. My parents kept ranch butchered meat in a locker at House of Beef, but I never thought of calling the whole place that.
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