Tucker's Black Angus Ranch opens new storefront in North Lawrence

Sep. 16—NORTH LAWRENCE — Not many stores sell products they produce themselves. That's what makes Tucker's Black Angus Ranch, which opened its new storefront this week at 299 Hazen Road in North Lawrence, so unique.

"Our storefront is where we sell all our naturally raised Black Angus beef, heritage pork, broiler chickens, and chevon, or goat meat," said owner Justin Tucker, who runs the store and farm with his wife, Kelli, and their four children.

"We sell everything in frozen retail packages," all inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he said.

The storefront is new, but the Tuckers have been working the farm for nearly a decade.

"Me and my wife have built this from scratch," Mr. Tucker said. "When we bought the land in 2010, it was all wooded, and started cutting down trees, building a house, and then we built a barn."

Soon after, they started raising cattle and livestock, and began selling the meat out of a tiny freezer.

"Business and demand has steadily grown since we've started this endeavor. We went from selling meat out of chest freezers in our garage to, four years later, having to put in a large walk-in freezer out of demand," he said.

"Then that wasn't enough," he said. "So last year we had to adapt and build a store with glass-front display freezers."

The store is a reflection of their 160-acre farm from which all the products come.

"Everything sold here is raised here," Mr. Tucker said.

On the farm, there are so many animals it could be mistaken for a zoo.

"We do a lot of show animals, and we bring them to events," he said.

"We raise Nubian, alpine, and boar-meat goats, and these are all show-quality animals," he said. "Genetics are at the top of the list of importance for us."

"We also have southdown babydoll sheep, Valais sheep, and Scottish blackface sheep. We have three horses, about a dozen pigs, three emus, and every summer we raise about 1,000 broiler chickens," he said.

Anyone interested in seeing all the animals will be able to do so about once a month, when Mr. Tucker said his family will host an open house on the farm. The details of which will be posted on the Tucker's Black Angus Ranch Facebook page.

"Customers can bring their children to visit the animals," he said.

Mr. Tucker has always loved animals, but the reason for the Black Angus beef farm stemmed from an unfortunate disaster on his parents' dairy farm.

"I was raised on a dairy farm, and after I graduated high school and went into the Marine Corps, I knew farming was what I wanted to pursue," he said. "The reason we got into black Angus beef was to build capital to take over my parents' farm, but right when we were getting ready to do that, they lost their whole farm in a fire, and at their age they decided not to build it back."

"That left me and my wife with an ultimatum," he added. "Do we continue raising beef and expand, or sell the beef and find a dairy farm somewhere else?"

Fortunately for those who like farm-raised meats, they stuck with the beef, and have continued to expand each year.

The storefront is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. You can also place orders on online at tuckersblackangusranch.com, or by phone at 315-600-6989.

"I would like to highlight that this is a veteran-owned business, and we're eager to have more events and meet new customers, so stop by or give us a call anytime," Mr. Tucker said.