Four Generations at Fritz’s

By Owen Morris

I’m fascinated by the preparation of food, especially meat. Yesterday I went to Fritz’s Superior Sausage Company at 103rd and State Line to see how professionals do it. Rob Reeves is a fourth-generation butcher, and his father, Bob, has more than 30 years of experience. Together, they cut, smoke and prepare cows, hogs, chicken and sausage. I arrived just as they were getting ready to put three whole pigs into the smoker for an event at Worlds of Fun. As Rob lifted the 120 pound hogs into place, Bob talked about the life of a butcher.

“You start at 6 a.m. and don’t go home until 10 at night and people don’t realize that… This week we didn’t get a day off. There’s a couch in the back to take naps. Around Thanksgiving, when the smokehouses are all full of meat, we won’t go home at all because we can’t risk making a mistake. So we’ll check on them every couple of hours during the night.”

Rob finished loading the pigs. He said that when he was four-years-old, he’d follow his dad around at the store, and worked for his father before leaving for Kansas State University and came back right after graduation. Rob is now in charge of day-to-day operations. “When I was younger, I used to have some trouble getting here on time but we don’t butt heads very much. We know what we have to do.”

The best day of his life, Bob later confided, “was when Rob graduated and came back to work.”

Not only is Fritz’s owned locally, but many of its supplies also come from local businesses.