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Heritage Craft Butchers closing up shop

3 min read
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Bob Von Scio admitted it was a tough decision to make.

But Heritage Craft Butchers will be closing its shops in Washington and Marianna by the end of the week.

“The plan is to be open through Sunday,” said Von Scio, who co-owns the company with Jared White. “But we’re selling off all of our current inventory, so if there’s a mad rush on Thursday afternoon, we might just pull the plug early, because there isn’t anything else to do beyond that.”

Von Scio posted a message on the company’s Facebook page Tuesday announcing the closure, stating it was a message that he wasn’t “looking forward to writing, posting, or getting notifications of views, comments, and reactions.”

Heritage Craft Butchers opened in Marianna Jan. 1, 2019. A retail shop in Waynesburg closed last summer after being open for two years. The Washington shop opened in September 2020 at 243 S. Main St.

Von Scio, a Greene County resident, categorized January as “catastrophic” for the company, even referring to the month as a “bloodbath” on Facebook. He said 2021 closed out strongly and a plan was in place for 2022. But factors such as COVID-19 and the weather reared their ugly heads.

“Everybody got COVID over a 10-day period,” Von Scio said, a tough blow to a company with just nine employees. “That hampered our production to start the month.”

Plus, the big snowstorms that hit the area in January also didn’t help, bringing about another couple of weeks of sub-par business.

“In this business, you always have to be rolling one week into the next to maintain momentum and we lost that momentum,” Von Scio said. “Our customer counts and our sales just didn’t come back.

“I hate having to let down our employees,” he said. “It’s a very close-knit group we have here. I want to give them the moon and the stars. It was an agonizing decision to take away their income and their vocation.”

Steps are being taken to find them new employment.

“We’ve gotten emails and messages from people who are interested in hiring some of our employees,” Von Scio said. “I’ve met a lot of people in the industry, and I will be trying to leverage those contacts and make sure as many of our employees move on to bigger and better things without any hiccup.”

About five hours after the post on the Facebook page, there were 150 comments from people, many expressing sadness about the news of the closing of the business.

“The support we’ve gotten from customers has been overwhelmingly positive,” Von Scio said. “It feels really good. Our customers have been incredible.”

All pre-orders will be filled. Also, there will be a liquidation auction as soon as possible to sell off all equipment and the building in Marianna, unless someone wants to buy the business in its entirety.

Future plans for Von Scio include starting a podcast and a YouTube channel focusing on the process of creating food with instruction on subjects such as how to create a meal with items within 100 yards of your kitchen table.

“I can talk about these little niche products that people can make in their home kitchen,” he said.

For now, it’s realizing the tough decision to close up shop.

“It’s really hard to admit defeat and say this is over,” Von Scio said.

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