Do you know what a meat "locker" is, and why it's called that?

In My Humble Opinion
21

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.

22

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

23
  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.
24

  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

25

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

26
  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.
27
  1. Butcher’s shop
  2. Abattoir
  3. Sydney, NSW.
  4. No, but when I was eight I remember that a friend’s mother did.
28
  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.