Chester's Smokehouse eyes spring opening

Chester's Smokehouse, the new meat store on Watervliet Avenue, is eyeing a spring opening, and Mark Altarac, a representative for the company, couldn't be more excited. "Get your mustard ready!" he says with a laugh.

The new business will offer a wide selection of smoked meats and cheeses. Kielbasa, knockwurst, liverwurst, beef jerky, hot dogs (six different kinds!), bacon, ham--in fact, if you can name a smoked meat, they will have almost certainly have it. 

The rear of the Chester's Smokehouse, where the guts of the operation 

(the smokers, fridges, and ventilation systems) can clearly be seen. The project, 

which required significant time and outlay for equipment and facilities has been 

in the works for two years. 

Chester Rozycki, the business's namesake and master butcher says everything they sell at the European-style meat store will be made on-site, in brand new state-of-the-art facilities. During a recent visit he was able to provide a top-to-bottom tour of the business, taking me from the door where the meat will arrive, past the room where the mixing, grinding and curing will take place, through the chopping and stuffing room, and into the last room, where two enormous smokers dominate. Rozycki took a moment to chat about the relative merits of different types of wood (Chester's will use primarily apple, hickory, and cherry), touching on the fine points of flavor and color provided by each, before showing me the water cookers, and the gargantuan refrigerator units at the rear of the building. 

Rozycki, who immigrated from Poland in 1982, attended butcher school for four years in his native country, and it's clear from the way he talks that the training he's received was rigorous. He enumerates the requirements of different products, the special chemistry of fats (hard vs. soft), protein, spices, curing, and smoking that goes into making your favorite meat. 

"The man is a meat scientist," Altarac says. "He's been perfecting his craft for 35 years." 

"You got to have the heart and the passion for it, to be good at it," Rozycki admits.  

The basement, which was dug out to allow for additional work and storage space, will house a drying area (for dried beef, bacon, pancetta, prosciutto, and dry cured ham), a cheese cooler, where they will age their own cheese, and a walk-in freezer. There is also a mixing area for pierogis and glumkes--and like everything else in the store, Rozycki will offer his own special take on this traditional European food. "My mother, in Europe, in the summer, she and the women would make fruit pierogis. Strawberry, apple, blueberry, with a little farmers' cheese. So we will try that. We'll also have potato, potato and sauerkraut, bacon and potato." 

It is hard, I quickly discover, to not feel hungry when you're talking to Rozycki, who is fond of listing the store's offerings, which are, I also quickly learn, extensive. 

Kielbasas, knockwursts, liverwursts, bratwursts, pastrami, corned beef, salami, prosciutto, pancetta, bacon, dried beef, garlic steaks--the list goes on and on, and each item seems to offer infinite variety. For instance, Rozycki plans to offer a boiled ham, layered with bacon and breakfast sausage, chicken patties ground with spinach and broccoli, hot dogs in different sizes made with beef, pork, veal, and chicken, and dry aged jerky, done in a variety of spices.  

So much, he continues, depends on just the right spices. Unlike other butchers, Rozycki will mix his own spices, so he gets exactly the right blend. "You don't want to buy pre-mixed spices because the leftovers get thrown in, and then the flavor is not there," says Rozycki. He also wants to be able to customize according to his customer's tastes. "Some people, they want less salt, other people they don't like fennel seeds, they like ground fennel." Indeed, everything about the business, from the time Rozycki took selecting meat suppliers to the front of store experience, which includes an inviting lunch counter and shiny new hanging meat refrigerator units, seems to have been chosen with the express goal of making his customers mouths water. 

The business has been in the works for two years, and Rozycki, who worked at the Albany Pork Store in Schenectady for 15 years before it closed in 2001, has built up a large following in the area who are eager for the doors to finally open. "My old boss, he keeps asking, 'Chester, when are you going to be open. We got everyone asking,'" Rozycki says with a laugh. When the place does finally throw open its doors, he envisions a wave of customers streaming down Central and off I-90 into their waiting arms. 

They also hope to capitalize on food connisseurs who routinely shop at Honest Weight Food Co-op just down the street on Watervliet Avenue. "That's why I put the smokers on this side of the building, so the smell would float out, and people would say, 'What's that? Maybe I'll stop and see.'" No doubt there is cross-over potential there, with both stores catering to discerning customers who are looking for high quality, local foods.

With deli sandwiches, hot dogs, and lunch specials that focus on different nationalities -- Polish Day, Irish Day, Italian Day -- Rozycki also hopes the business will pull in a nice sized lunch crowd.  

"It's something different," Rozycki says. "You're not going to find this anywhere else." 

Chester's Smokehouse is located 15 Watervliet Avenue, Albany. For more information, please visit their website at www.chesterssmokehouse.com