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After an early 2017 fire destroyed Tails & Trotters, Aaron Silverman’s award-winning specialty meats store resurfaced as a food cart with a crowdfunding campaign and big hopes to reopen its storefront. This week it all come to fruition, after raising more than $20,000 and a complete renovation.
The Kerns butchery announced its reopening on Instagram last week, inviting patient customers to return to the deli counter and its subsequent meats.
The shop renovated the previous location, now offering beer and wine as well as more seating for lunchtime soup and sandwich enthusiasts.
Still, Silverman is cautious about celebrating.
“Getting the shop reopened is just the first step,” Silverman says. “The next step is the production facility for prosciutto and coppa, those things that take months and years to make.”
Tails & Trotters is known for its hazelnut prosciutto, made with pork “finished with” (fed) hazelnuts. He ages legs of prosciutto for 24 months, and after losing his inventory in the fire, the team had to adapt.
The menu, Silverman says, is ‘almost completely intact,’ though the store’s fallen cured meats leave a serious hole in the sandwich department.
In its place sits the Stumptown Chop, with smoked pork loin shaved thin on a bakery roll. Silverman developed the sandwich while working at the food cart, which the team opened through the summer while treading water before reopening.
Tails & Trotters is beloved both locally and nationally, nabbing Good Food Awards and a spot on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. The pork for sausage, pancetta, and the rest remains hazelnut-fed, but the waiting game continues for that hazelnut prosciutto.
Tails & Trotters is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
Update: March 16, 2:22 p.m.
This story has been updated to include more information about the fire at Tails & Trotters.
• Tails & Trotters [Official]
• Tails & Trotters [Instagram]
• Fire-Ravaged Tails & Trotters Launches Crowdsourcing Campaign [EPDX]
• Tails & Trotters and The Pie Spot Rise From the Flames in the Form of a Food Cart [EPDX]
