JEFF FIELDER Editor
BRIDGEPORT – Ryan Nelson is the owner of 385 Meat Market in downtown Bridgeport. He opened the store in October 2016. Nelson, 45, grew up on a farm about 15 miles south of Bridgeport. He graduated from Bridgeport High School in 1994 and then graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1998 with a bachelor’s degree in ag business. He has two sons: Thomas Nelson, who’s a senior at Gering High School, and Wyatt Nelson, a sophomore at Gering High School. When Ryan set up his LLC for 385 Meat Market, he made each of his sons 1 percent owners. 385 Meat Market is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Q: Talk about what 385 Meat Market has to offer.
NELSON: “Essentially, 385 Meat Market is kind of a blast from the past – an old school butcher. It’s kind of like a place in Chicago, where you might have seen a tavern and a butcher on each block. Or another way of putting it is if you took the meat department out of the grocery store and made it its own entity, that’s what we are. At 385 Meat Market, we offer customers quite a bit. We can do special cuts of meat, we make our own sausages, and we do bundle orders, such as beef quarters, half beef, or whole. We do a lot of special orders. We carry a lot of different kinds of meat. We even have alligator here. That definitely wasn’t on our initial order list, but we do carry it now. In addition to beef, we carry a very large selection of seafood, such as king crab legs, lobster tails, mahi-mahi, Ahi tuna, red snapper, and halibut. We also sell a lot of jerky. Here’s another neat thing about what we do. We provide a lot of regional products, like seasonings that are made in Oshkosh and Bayard. We also carry Sarah Jane’s line of products – like salsa and jellies – that are made in Argonia, Kansas.”
You can read the entire story in the April issue of Nspire Today! magazine. A one-year subscription (12 issues) is only $15. You may sign up for a subscription by sending $15 to Nspire Today!, P.O. Box 454, Scottsbluff, NE 69363, or you may pay with a credit card by calling 308-220-8865.
The current issue of Nspire Today! magazine is available at locations listed below.
