The night before opening his butcher shop, Galen Iverstine found himself worrying about toilet paper.
Had he filled the dispensers? What if somebody walked into the bathroom and there wasn’t any? After all the work of getting a new business ready, that small uncertainty was enough to send him back to check.
Then came the bigger question: Would anybody show up?
“Does anybody understand what we’re doing?” he remembers wondering in his conversation with Dear Louisiana.
They showed up. And as Iverstine Butcher marks ten years in Baton Rouge, Galen keeps returning to the people who have made a habit of coming back.
The short answer: what is Iverstine Butcher?
Iverstine Butcher is Galen Iverstine’s whole-animal butcher shop, market and eatery at 7731 Perkins Road in Baton Rouge. The butcher shop opened in October 2016 and moved to its larger location in 2022. Its tenth anniversary in October 2026 is an occasion to look at the idea behind the counter and the regular customers Galen credits with helping it grow.
Watch: Galen Iverstine on ten years
Anniversary film, October 24, 2026. Filmed and produced by Lana Oliver Productions for Dear Louisiana. The closing invitation refers to that date.
A butcher shop he wanted Baton Rouge to have
Galen says the shop took shape over two years of thinking about what Baton Rouge needed. He saw room for a whole-animal butcher shop, a business whose work customers might initially confuse with a specialty meat market.
The distinction mattered to him. Whole-animal butchery starts with more than a selection of familiar steaks. It means working with the animal’s different cuts and finding uses for what comes through the shop. For the customer, it also creates a chance to ask questions: What is this cut? What should I do with it? What would work for dinner?
That relationship was already part of Galen’s work before there was a storefront. His background in farming near Kentwood and selling at farmers markets put him in direct conversation with the people taking his food home.
The Southern Foodways Alliance’s oral history traces his interest in food systems to his LSU years, followed by a farm internship in New Hampshire and a return to Louisiana. Farming became a way to act on that interest. The butcher shop gave it a place in Baton Rouge where customers could return throughout the week.
From the first storefront to a bigger table
The original Iverstine Farms Butcher opened at 4765 Perkins Road in October 2016. A contemporary opening report in 225 described a butcher shop and smokehouse bringing the family farm’s products to customers more consistently.
In June 2022, the business moved farther down Perkins Road, gaining room for a kitchen and dining space. Galen’s work evolved, too, from raising livestock himself toward sourcing from other farms.
Today, the butcher counter and restaurant offer two ways into the business: something to cook at home or something to eat there. Its listed producers include farms and food businesses in Louisiana and neighboring Mississippi.
The setting has changed since opening day. Galen says listening to customers has been central to how the business has grown.
The people who kept coming back
Asked who comes to mind when he thinks about making it ten years, Galen doesn’t single out one person.
“It’s the person who comes in every single week that we’ve been seeing for ten years,” he says.
He describes customers who have given feedback and asked the shop to try things. Their requests have helped shape what came next. In his telling, growth has involved paying attention to the people already walking through the door.
That also means acknowledging that building a business includes changes, experiments and failures. When Galen thanks his customers, he makes a point of thanking them for their patience.
An anniversary can make a business’s history look tidy. His account leaves room for the work of figuring it out: trying something, hearing what people think, and returning to do it again.
His first-visit picks: a burger or a pork chop
For somebody who has never walked through the door, Galen offers a recommendation for each side of the shop.
At the restaurant, he chooses the cheeseburger. He calls it the classic burger he has always wanted to make, and something he is proud to serve.
At the butcher counter, he points to the bone-in pork chop. It is the product he says he would choose to introduce a newcomer to the flavor and quality he wants the shop to represent.
Those are Galen’s picks, and an easy starting point for a first visit: sit down for his burger, or ask the butcher about something to take home.
Keep showing up
Galen’s final thought reaches beyond Iverstine Butcher.
He asks people to keep visiting the independent places they value in their own towns. A place can be somebody’s favorite and still depend on that person making another trip through the door.
“We are counting on you showing up every week,” he says.
Ten years after he wondered whether anybody would come, that is still the relationship he describes: a shop that keeps listening and customers who keep returning.
For anyone heading down Perkins Road, the invitation is straightforward. Come in. Ask a question. Try the burger or take home a pork chop. If it becomes a place you want in your town, make another visit.
Visiting Iverstine Butcher
Where is Iverstine Butcher? At 7731 Perkins Road, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Check the official website for current butcher and eatery hours; the two have different schedules.
When did the butcher shop open? October 2016. The tenth anniversary in October 2026 marks the shop’s opening, rather than the earlier start of Galen’s farming work.
What does Galen recommend trying? The restaurant cheeseburger or a bone-in pork chop from the butcher counter.
More Louisiana stories
Meet Kara and Shane Castille of Thee Heavenly Donut in another Dear Louisiana conversation about the people and work behind a local food business, or read about Chef Patrick Trahan’s approach to craft and care at Ruffino’s.
Explore more original reporting in Dear Louisiana’s Stories and meet the people shaping the state in Louisiana People.
Filmed and produced by Lana Oliver Productions, a Baton Rouge video production company, for Dear Louisiana.
