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Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life January 23, 2015

Posted on January 23, 2015 by pwpadmin

kale buds saute — Kale Buds from EcoRich Farms sauteed with garlic, butter and lemon juice

Grocery Life January 23, 2015

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. We have gone from beautiful, warm weather, back to clouds and cold. I think they are even talking about a chance of snow over the next few days.

It has been kind of quiet around the store this week. I guess that will all change if we do indeed get snow but I’m not counting on that. Actually, the perfect scenario for us is a strong prediction of snow and then nothing happening. All our business comes on the rumor so it never really needs to snow for us to have big business, people just need to think it’s going to snow.

I love the snow and my kids would really like to have some snow but when it snows, it is a pain to try to operate the business. The staff can’t get to work, deliveries are off schedule, and customers can’t get here to shop. I can’t control it either way so I don’t worry about it a whole lot.

Believe it or not, I have fried okra at home twice over the last week. We have found a supplier that has been shipping us some beautiful okra. It is actually grown in Argentina, but the quality has been almost as good as our okra in the summer. We all love fried okra at the house so now maybe we can have it year round.

We are also getting some different varieties of kale in our produce department. Some is coming in as bagged salads but we also now have kale buds and kale sprouts. We tried the kale buds the other night. I just sautéed them with garlic and butter and when they started to tenderize I added a little lemon juice. I would have also added I little white wine but we didn’t have any. They ended up having a very similar taste to Brussels sprouts, just with a different texture. I have not tried the kale sprouts yet but Ms. Tenney mixed them with scrambled eggs during her cooking segment on the news this week so there’s an idea..

mirco kale — Micro Kale Sprouts from EcoRich Farms

In our deli department, we are carrying some new things from Tomato Head restaurant. We have always carried their hummus and we have now added two flavors of their pesto, regular, and spinach & sundried tomato. We also have their tahini dressing. These are local products, with all natural ingredients so you may want to give them a try.

Another thing we are using at home now is Applegate Naturals turkey bacon. If you are looking for a healthy alternative to regular bacon, you may want to try it. To me, most turkey bacon is not worth carrying home but everyone at our house likes this brand.

We carry a full line of Applegate products in our meat department, from three types of bacon to lunch meats and cheeses. They are all gluten and nitrate free.

Well I am going to do something this weekend that I have never done before. I am going to a NBA basketball game.

A family on Tyson’s basketball team bought a game package for the Atlanta Hawks at a charity auction and they invited Tyson’s whole team to go to the game. Our family, as well as most of the other families on the team, is driving down this afternoon to watch the game tonight. My kids are really excited. I haven’t really followed the NBA since Dr. J retired so maybe seeing a game will revive my interest.

I told Erica I wanted to leave a little early so we could stop by the new Cabela’s store that opened up down there. I’m pretty excited about that.

Last weekend, I also did something I had never done before. I went on a double date to an indoor gun range. My friend’s birthday was last weekend and every year he and his wife and Erica and I go out for it. He gets to pick where we go since it’s his birthday. He decided he wanted to do the gun range and a nice Asian dinner. There is nothing like dressing up to go to the gun range and dinner on a Saturday night.

We went to Gunny’s in Maryville to shoot and then went to Lemongrass to eat dinner. I’m sure our server at Lemongrass was wondering why we smelled like gun powder and couldn’t hear what he was saying.

As my British friends would say,” It was a lovely evening out with friends.” I wonder what he will come up with next year.

As a side note, if you do go to Gunny’s to shoot guns there is a Cuban restaurant just down the street called Cafe Aroma that has the best Cuban sandwich I have ever eaten, if you like Cuban food.

Well two exciting weekends in a row! I don’t know what I will do next weekend to keep my streak alive of doing things I have never done before. Hmm…. I’ve never been to a Super Bowl.

Have a great weekend!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life January 20, 2015

Posted on January 20, 2015 by pwpadmin

Grocery Life January 20, 2015

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good week! We have finally gotten some sunny weather over the last few days which seems to have put everyone in a better frame of mind.

Business has continued to hold up well during January. We thought we had a good week of business last week until we compared it to the same week last year. We were way down from last year’s numbers. After a little head scratching, we figured out last year during the same week was our twenty-four year anniversary sale.

It was the first time we had ever had an anniversary sale and it turned out to be a big success. I guess most stores would have an anniversary sale every year. It took me twenty-four years before I thought the timing was right for ours. My staff recently asked me if we were going to do one for twenty-five years but it just didn’t feel right being so close to the last one. I think one every few years is plenty. I wouldn’t want to wear out our welcome.

Besides the anniversary sale, we have only had one other special sale in the last twenty-five years. It was a sale to pay tribute to my late friend and partner here at the store, Mr. Bailey.

For that sale, we picked out all of the items he loved to advertise and sell here at the store as well as the things he enjoyed himself. We put all of the items below cost which made the sale a huge success! To be honest, I don’t know if people cared about getting great deals as much as they just wanted to come in and show their gratitude for what Mr. Bailey meant in their lives by just being their grocery man.

I know many of you that read this remember him fondly and those of you that never made his acquaintance, all I can say is they don’t make them like him anymore.

One of the things we advertised for the tribute sale was Miller High Life beer. That was Mr. Bailey’s beer of choice at home on his farm. He kept a refrigerator in his barn and it always stayed stocked with the High Life. I think he and his buddies solved a lot of the world’s problems gathering around that barn over a cold beer.

I would often need to call Mr. Bailey at home over some issue at the store. More times than not his wife would tell me, “he’s down at the barn, just call him on the phone down there.” I never called him at the barn. Farming was his escape from the grocery business and I wasn’t about to interrupt that. I just worked out whatever problem I had at the store on my own. It never failed, when darkness rolled around on those days, Mr. Bailey would call me at the store to see if I needed him for something. No doubt when he had gotten in for the evening, and his wife had told him I had called earlier in the day.

We probably all have places that we go when we need to solve the world’s problems without interruption. Mine would be standing in a river or in a boat on a river.

That ad for Mr. Bailey was the only time we have put beer in any of our advertisements. We have always sold beer but I just have never felt comfortable promoting it in our ads. I’m not sure if people care one way or the other but out of respect for those that might, I have chosen not to do it.

Our competitors advertise it every week in their ads and I am sure it would help our beer sales if we did the same. We have a great selection and very competitive pricing on it.

Ray half jokingly told me the other day that he was strongly considering putting beer in our Super Bowl ad. I think he just wanted to see my reaction. I told him that would be fine but that someone else would be writing the ads afterwards if he did so.

I know Ray gets frustrated with my different ways of thinking and I can assure you he’s not the only one. I even get frustrated with myself sometimes. Oh well, I feel like I have to be willing to answer for every decision I make for the store and that has been a good compass for me up to this point.

Well after twenty-five years, we have had one anniversary sale, one tribute sale, and we have advertised beer one time. The excitement just never ends around here. Stay tuned because in the next eight or ten years we may have another big exciting event sale.

My friend Joseph and I are going to go stand in a river this afternoon and solve some of the world’s problems. We typically can narrow those down to one, how to get the fish to bite.

The rest can wait until darkness rolls around, we head home and our wives give us our phone messages.

Have a great week!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

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Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life 13, 2015

Posted on January 13, 2015 by pwpadmin

Grocery Life January 13, 2015

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good week. The weather continues to be cold and we added about a foot of rain to that yesterday. Still not complaining, still glad I have a warm and dry place to work and sleep. When the KUB bills come I may have a different attitude, we’ll see.

The year has started out good for business. Typically, business slows in the cold months but so far it is holding up pretty well. We are always trying to figure out why business is the way it is, good or bad. About the time we think we have it figured out, it changes so I don’t spend a lot of time on that mind twister. I do know low gas prices are putting more money in all of our pockets so maybe that’s why business is good.

I would have thought low gas prices would be great for the U.S. economy but the stock market doesn’t seem to think so. It keeps going down with the oil prices. I would be the first to tell you I can’t figure out what makes the stock market go up or down either.

January is when we negotiate a lot of our contracts with suppliers for the year. It seems like we do less and less of this each year. Most of these contracts are with national brand companies and I think they are turning most of their attention to big chain store accounts. That’s ok with me. I never like negotiating with some stranger I only see once a year.

We don’t have contracts with our smaller suppliers; we do handshake deals with them. That is more my speed. They give me their word and I give them mine and we rarely have a problem.

One of my favorite suppliers is Cruze Dairy Farm. We buy milk and ice cream from them. Their farm is in Kodak, Tennessee on the banks of the French Broad River. I send them an order every week and they deliver every Friday. A member of the Cruze family always delivers the milk. If you are looking for “farm to table” products, this is a classic example and the farmer even brings it.

We also have brought in a new line of milk this month. It is from a company called Fairlife. This is what I would call”super” milk. It is an ultra-filtered milk so they have taken out all of the “bad” qualities in milk leaving only the beneficial qualities. I brought some home last night to try. I can tell you it tastes like milk. For those of you that have problems with drinking milk, you may want to research this one. http://fairlife.com/

It is amazing how many varieties of milk we have. We have regular milk, super milk, local milk, almond milk, soy milk, coconut milk, etc. etc.

The milk I grew up on was delivered to our front door every morning. I think Avondale was the dairy that delivered it and am pretty sure it came in glass bottles. I think later on they switched to paper cartons.

I don’t know how many varieties they offered. My guess would be two, whole milk and a low-fat option. I also don’t know how my mother ordered it and paid for it. I know it wasn’t by email and Internet like we do today. She probably left a handwritten note on the door for her order and maybe an envelope with a check in it to pay.

I do remember when they quit delivering milk to our front door. I also remember wondering what we were going to do about milk even though we went to the grocery store every week. I don’t think I would have ever thought about my mother getting milk there. I probably didn’t even know you could get milk there. I guess that’s what we did after they quit delivering and I am sure we all complained about it not being the same.

Many years later, when I left home, our concrete front porch still bore milk stains from those deliveries so many years ago. I don’t know if my mother left them there as a reminder of the “good ole days” or if they were so ingrained they couldn’t be removed. Either way, every time I see a milk stain on our cooler floor at the store I always think about that milk that used to come to my front door every morning.

Have a good week and…

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life January 9, 2015

Posted on January 9, 2015 by pwpadmin

Grocery Life January 9, 2015

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is staying warm this week. Looks like we are not going to get a warm-up for another few days but at least the sun is out today.

As you might imagine, bundles of firewood and artificial fire logs have been popular items this week. We used to get our bundles of firewood from a supplier in North Carolina but now we have a local supplier. John, who lives just down the road from the store, started his own firewood company last year. He and his family shop with us so when he approached us to sell his wood, we jumped at the chance. We always prefer to deal with local folks. Also, with all the new restrictions on where firewood comes from and the bad pests that can get imported into our area within the wood, it is nice to have a supplier that uses locally harvested wood. I think if you need more than a bundle of firewood he will deliver a load to your home.

His company name is Darn Good Firewood and here is his email and phone number if you need some wood delivered.

Darn Good Firewood Phone: 865-712-9561 email: darngoodfirewood@gmail.com

Staying on the wood and fire theme, we now have a locally made, all natural lump charcoal. It is perfect for big green eggs as well as other charcoal burning grills and smokers. We used it throughout the holidays here at the store to sear beef tenderloins and were really pleased with the quality of it. It comes in twenty pound bags, cost about ten dollars less per bag than the green egg brand, and best of all it’s a local product so you may want to give it a try.

The representative from our grocery wholesaler was in the store earlier this week. He wanted to meet to discuss the results of 2014 and to help us strategize about 2015. We all chatted awhile about our successes and failures and what we can do better. Grocery talk can be pretty boring as you would know by reading this blog.

The most exciting topic our rep and us discussed was how many bags of food we sold and donated during our “feed the hungry” food drive during the holiday season. His company is behind the design of the program so they are really interested in determining the success of it. He is the rep for numerous grocery stores in several states and he told us our store was far and away the most successful with the drive. He thought the combined total of the rest of his stores still would not equal our success.

I tell you that to tell you this. Give yourself a big pat on the back for being such a giving community. All we do here at the store is facilitate the program. The credit goes to you for the success of it. I don’t have the final totals from Second Harvest as to how many pounds of food we sent to them but I think it’s going to be around four thousand pounds!

Last but not least the president is coming to town today. I bet my wife and mom just cringed when they read that last sentence wondering what I was going to write about him. Well no worries, that’s all I’m going to write about that… You will have to read between the lines.

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life January 6, 2015

Posted on January 6, 2015 by pwpadmin

Grocery Life January 6, 2015

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. The new year has brought some miserably cold weather with it. I hope someone enjoys it because I despise it. I do have a warm, dry place to work and sleep. Not everyone can say that so maybe I shouldn’t complain. Maybe that should be one of my New Year’s resolutions, don’t complain about the weather or for that matter anything. Don’t hold me to it but I will try to make a better effort.

This is my first blog since before Christmas. The week before Christmas is a very busy time for us at the store so it is hard for me to relax enough to write. Once Christmas passes, I just kind of shut down mentally for a few days so I have nothing in my mind to write about. It is now time to get back to the normal routine and I am ready!

I do hope all of you had a nice Christmas and New Years! We had a great holiday season here at the store. For that matter, we had a great year altogether. It was our best year in sales since we started here twenty five years ago.

We celebrated for about five minutes and then we got back to work, trying to figure out ways to grow some more this new year. You can never “rest on your laurels” for too long in this business. I don’t know what “rest on your laurels” means but I say it a lot so I hope it applies.

Business Christmas week was another record breaker. Most of it is driven by our meat department and most of that is driven by beef tenderloin. If you were in the store the week of Christmas you probably saw six or seven guys in the meat department trimming tenderloins. They did that all day everyday leading up to Christmas.

People always ask me how much tenderloin we sell during the holidays when they see all of them back there working and all the piles of meat on their tables. This year we sold a little over twelve thousand pounds of it Christmas week and by New Years, we had sold around thirteen thousand five hundred pounds of it, so almost seven tons. That’s about two thousand individual tenderloins.

A lady came in one evening and asked about the tenderloin. She had never bought one and was worried about the price of them. She asked me if they were really worth it. When I told her that we would sell twelve thousand pounds of it to people who thought it was worth it, she said to give her the biggest one we had. I hope she thought it was worth it! I bet she did!

Christmas at our house was a big day. I wasn’t even sure it was going to happen because Mrs. Santa Claus was suffering from a bad virus Christmas Eve. Mr. Santa can do a lot of Christmas but Mrs. Santa does the finer touches that make Christmas magical. She toughed it out so by Christmas morning everything was perfect.

Everyone seemed thrilled with the gifts they received. There is always a big sigh of relief from Mr. and Mrs. Santa when that happens.

I liked all of my gifts this year. Three of my favorites were kind of homemade gifts. My mother gave me a picture album she put together of my whole life. It has pictures of my grandparents and parents before I was born as well as pictures of the events in my life growing up. It is a great history in pictures that we have all enjoyed looking through.

Erica gave me a painting that one of my best friend’s dad painted. She knows how much I value the works of people I know so those are always special gifts for me.

My son Tyson wrote a book called Fishing With Dad for my Christmas present. It is a story about him planning a fishing trip for us. He is a creative little boy and I love being the recipient of any of his creations.

I really liked his story but one part was troubling to me. When he was trying to plan our trip in his story, apparently I told him I was too busy to go when he wanted to. We eventually got to go on our trip in his story which made everything okay.

I guess I need to work on not being “too busy” for my children when they want to do something in the future. I sure don’t want that to be a recurring theme in their stories about me. I guess I will add that to my growing list of New Year’s resolutions.

Thanks again for all of your support in 2014.

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life December 16, 2014

Posted on December 16, 2014 by pwpadmin

Grocery Life December 16, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone had a nice weekend!

Our new two week ad came out Sunday. You may have gotten a copy in Sunday’s News Sentinel or it can also be found on our website.

We always try to put the things you love for Christmas in it. I think this one hit the mark. Ray, with a little help from the rest of us, always does a good job of putting our ads together.

The two big items in this ad are the whole beef tenderloin and the standing rib roast. I love both of them. If I am cooking for myself, I usually go with the standing rib roast. If I am cooking for a group, I do beef tenderloin.

I like the flavor of the standing rib better. The higher fat content and bones are the reason for this. Fat makes things good and the bones also add flavor. They are a little harder to handle than beef tenderloin so when I am cooking for a group, I will go with the tenderloin. Either way, you can’t go wrong.

These are my favorite recipes for each cut of meat.

Beef Tenderloin Marinade

Ingredients

1 1/2 c Vegetable Oil
3/4 c Soy Sauce
1/4 c Worcestershire Sauce
2 tbsp Dry Mustard

2 1/2 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Pepper
½ c Wine Vinegar
1/3 c Lemon Juice
1 Garlic Clove

Directions

For best results marinate for 12-24 hours in a gallon size storage bag per tenderloin.
After marinating, sear on high heat in a skillet or on the grill turning until all sides are browned. About 7-10 min. total.
3. Then bake uncovered in a 250 degree oven for 1 hour or to desired doneness. Note: Pull out at internal temperature of 125 for mid-rare, 135 medium, 145 mid-well, and 155 well done.
Let rest out of the oven for 15 minutes before slicing.

Horseradish Crusted Standing Rib Roast

Ingredients

1 bone in prime rib beef roast, 3 ribs, about 6 pounds
5 garlic cloves, smashed
1/4 cup grated fresh or prepared horseradish
Leaves from 2 fresh rosemary sprigs
Leaves from 4 fresh thyme sprigs
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil (enough to make a paste)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Lay the beef in a large roasting pan with the bone side down. (The ribs act as a natural roasting rack.) In a small bowl mash together the garlic, horseradish, rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper, and olive oil to make a paste. Massage the paste generously over the entire roast. Put the pan in the oven and roast the beef until the internal temperature of the meat registers 125 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer (medium-rare), 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Remove the beef to a carving board and let it rest for 20 minutes before carving.

Note: If roast is bigger than 6 pounds cook 15-20 min. per pound

Pull roast out at 125 for medium rare, 135 for medium, 145 for medium-well, and 155 for well-done.

We also have copies of these recipes at the store. Neither one of these recipes are mine but after trying a lot of others, they are the ones I always go back to.

My latest gift idea would be a gift card. We have a large selection of gift cards for sale at the store. Most are for large retailers but we also have them for restaurants.

Our most popular ones would be from Butler and Bailey Market, ITunes, Visa, and Starbucks. You can load a Butler and Bailey card with any amount you choose and the other cards are available in several price ranges. These make great stocking stuffers and are also perfect for mailing.

I usually buy a few gift cards myself. My mom will probably get a gift certificate for our cooking classes, the kids usually get one for an ice cream shop or toy store and I always get a Victoria’s Secret gift card for Erica.

The Victoria’s Secret card started out as a joke several years ago, now it has become a tradition. I don’t remember what the joke was but it was probably funnier to me than anyone else. I’m good at humoring myself.

The problem with this gift card is we don’t sell them in the store. I have to go to Victoria’s Secret in the mall to buy one. That is a cultural experience.

I am like a fish out of water in the mall. For some reason they have people standing in the middle of the walkways that attack you when you walk by. I guess they are trying to sell stuff but aren’t there enough stores in the mall without having people in the middle of the walkways jumping out at me when I walk by.

When I go into Victoria’s Secret, I am really out of my comfort zone. Also, the counter where you buy the gift cards is in the very back of the store so I get to walk through the whole place just to buy a gift card.

Usually when I go in other stores, I look around for ideas that I think might work in our store. I have never really seen anything in there that I thought would translate well to our store. To tell you the truth, I really feel uncomfortable looking at the displays for fear someone may see me looking at the displays. I’m sure if I told them I was looking for ideas for my grocery store they would understand?

Well, I guess I will have to keep up this tradition since I am the one that started it. For all I know, Erica has a drawer full of gift cards that have gone unused. While I don’t remember what the original joke was for getting the card, the joke has become me having to go to the store every year to buy the card. Now Erica probably gets a bigger laugh out of it than I do.

Getting through the Christmas season in a good spirit is not always easy to accomplish. We seem to all get stressed out trying to get everything planned and organized before the big day. Having a good sense of humor goes a long way in helping me get through this busy time…even if the joke is on me.

Have a great week!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life December 11, 2014

Posted on December 11, 2014 by pwpadmin

Grocery Life December 11, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good morning from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good week. The sun came out today which has put me in a better frame of mind.

Well Christmas is two weeks from today. That’s kind of hard to believe. It seems like Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are about a week apart now.

Our Christmas ad will be out this Sunday and will run to the twenty-seventh of December. It has a lot of your Christmas favorites in it.

One thing that’s not in it is a goat. We order a goat for a friend of mine every year at this time. He has some friends from Ethiopia and that is their favorite meal so he buys them one for Christmas.

Ashley came up to tell me that the goat had arrived and two customers standing close by started talking about how good goats are to eat. I have never eaten goat that I know of and never thought I would want to. Now I am thinking about trying it. It’s a heck of a lot cheaper than beef and I can just lie to Erica and the kids about what they are eating. Maybe if it turns out good I will put it in next year’s Christmas ad.

Argentine red shrimp will be in the Christmas ad. We had these for supper last night. A friend of ours gave us an easy way to prepare them. All you do is peel and devein them, toss them in olive oil, season them with salt and pepper and lay them on a cookie sheet in a 400 degree oven for about five minutes. I usually try to turn them over at about three minutes but I am not sure it matters.

We serve them on pasta which is usually tossed in olive oil also. We like whole grain angel hair pasta but any kind will work. We typically will have a green salad with it.

It is a fast, easy to prepare meal that is pretty healthy so you may want to give it a try.

Last week I gave you a Christmas idea for the man that has everything. It was a Yeti cooler full of meat. I think I counted five Yeti’s stacked up in the back so there are going to be five happy men. I bet more people will want them as Christmas nears.

Another good idea would be a gift certificate to one of Barbara Tenney’s cooking classes. I give these as gifts myself. People love her cooking classes here at the store so you can’t go wrong choosing this as a gift. You can purchase these in the store.

Everyone is still talking about the Christmas parade. People cannot wait until next year. I think that it went so well I am now wondering if we could put together some kind of Rocky Hill block party for the spring or summer. What do you think?

Have a great weekend!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life December 9, 2014

Posted on December 9, 2014 by pwpadmin

Grocery Life December 9, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good week.

Well, it turns out Rocky Hill can put on a Christmas parade. What a great event Saturday night! Everyone I have talked to can’t say enough about how much fun they had at the parade and how well it was organized. We owe the organizers of the parade a BIG thank you for all their hard work in making it such a success!

I think what made the parade so special for many of us was all the familiar faces that participated in the parade and everyone in the crowd seemed to know everyone else. It really had that “community feel.”

Post by Rocky Hill Christmas Parade.

My family watched the parade out in front of the store so I didn’t see any of the crowd beyond the shopping center or on Morrell Road. It has been estimated the crowd was between seven to ten thousand people. I bet it will be even bigger and better next year.

After a late Saturday night, we got up and drug ourselves into church Sunday morning. I am not sure any of us were in a real worshipful mood starting out but when I entered our sanctuary that morning I don’t think I have ever seen it more beautiful. The sanctuary was decorated, the choir had new robes and there was a full orchestra to perform with them. I try to never pull my phone out during the church service, probably for fear of being struck by a lightning but I felt compelled this Sunday to take a picture. I guess I would have been struck down long ago if misbehaving in church is the cause?

The whole service was the choir, accompanied by the orchestra, telling the Christmas story through music. Now I like a good sermon and nothing against the preacher, if he is reading this, but there is no better way to tell the Christmas story than with a choir and orchestra in my eyes.

I don’t think I have felt that moved in our sanctuary since a beautiful young lady walked down the aisle sixteen years ago and said “I do.”

Sunday afternoon we went in different directions. Lauren sang Christmas carols with her choir at Market Square so Erica was with her. Meanwhile, Tyson and I went to get a Christmas tree.

I went to my friend’s tree lot down from the store like I always do. Once again, when he saw me, he walked straight over to a tree and told me it was the perfect tree. I agreed and we loaded it up. Usually once it’s loaded, we talk about sweet potatoes for a while. This year we talked about wine in grocery stores and beef prices. Thirty minutes later, Tyson and I were on our way.

Speaking of beef prices, they continue to be the highest they have ever been. As we enter the biggest beef month of the year for the store, this is somewhat disheartening. We have been negotiating hard for the last three months trying to get decent pricing for the Christmas season and have actually had some success. Beef tenderloin has been as high as $15.99 a pound. We got it down to $13.99 during Thanksgiving and I am proud to say it will be even cheaper for the Christmas season starting this Sunday.

Be on the lookout for our Christmas ad which comes out this Sunday. We will have your favorite cuts of beef in it as well as other holiday items to prepare your Christmas meals.

Last but not least, I have mentioned before that we have bags of food already prepared that you can purchase and donate to Second Harvest while you are at the store. They have already picked up four pallet loads and you all continue to refill the bins with bags as soon as they are emptied. I just want to say thank you for being such a generous community.

Being in a retail business during the holidays is not always conducive to getting into the Christmas spirit. I am lucky to work in a community that has a Christmas parade, to go to a church with such great Christmas programs and to play a part in providing so much food for the needy!

I am now ready for Christmas! I hope you are too!

Have a great week!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919

Grocery Life December 5, 2014

Posted on December 5, 2014 by pwpadmin

rocky hill christmas tree — Rocky Hill Christmas Tree

Grocery Life December 5, 2014

By Tom Butler

Good afternoon from Butler and Bailey Market. I hope everyone is having a good week!

The excitement continues to build for the Rocky Hill Christmas parade tomorrow. The customers have been asking about it all week. We have also sold quite a few t shirts, hoodies and parade Christmas ornaments.

The weather has looked iffy all week but Todd Howell told me last night that the rain is going to move out in the morning. We should have nice weather by the time the parade starts.

We have been busy at the store this week. When Christmas nears we start getting a lot of special orders so we have already started to put those together. We have learned the hard way that you cannot wait until the last minute to start on these.

We have a few customers that give the gift of meat every year. Every year their orders for these meat baskets grow which tells me they are always a big hit as gifts. Ashley, in our meat department, does a great job of putting these together.

I have a great gift idea for you if you are searching for a gift for the man that has everything. Buy him a Yeti cooler and then bring it to us to make a steak basket out of it.

Last year Erica got me a Yeti and I love it! It turns out several of my friends got them from their wives and they love them also. These are expensive coolers but you get what you pay for and guys love them.

We are using Yeti coolers on some of the basket orders we have already received. This customer is giving them to some of the key people in his company as well as family members. He is using the roadie size as well as the 35 tundra size.

Here is an example of one we made with the roadie size.

If you are interested in this idea we charge 25 dollars to put the cooler basket together plus whatever you pick out to put in the basket. We will have it packed with ice and decorated. The ice will keep for days in the cooler so you can put it under the tree a day or two in advance of Christmas morning.

He will love the steaks and have a great cooler that will last forever. Let us know if we can help you with one.

You could get your wife this for Christmas but based on my experience, expensive jewelry or a new car would work better.

I hope to see you all at the parade tomorrow!

Thanks for letting us be a part of your community,

Tom Butler

Click here to view past blogs

Butler and Bailey Market

7513 Northshore Dr.

Knoxville, TN 37919