Chris Murray, owner
Circumventing big business, Chris Murray has been servicing restaurants across the tri-state area by providing wholesale prices on meat since 2008.
“I was working at Interstate Foods in the Meatpacking District, and my mother was a waitress at Grandma’s Restaurant in Yorktown at the time,” says the entrepreneur. The restaurant’s manager asked Murray if Interstate could deliver poultry to his restaurant; they wouldn’t, so Murray did it himself. Then, he found a hook-up with high school friends to supply meat for their new venture, Peekskill Brewery. From there, Murray slowly gathered additional local-restaurant clients, including Emma’s Ale House and Augie’s Prime Cut, until his side gig wasn’t a side gig anymore.
From one truck and five clients in 2008 — with an annual revenue of $100,000 — CM Meats now grosses several million dollars a year via five trucks and 100 clients. It’s also expanded into home-delivery services, an additional venture that occurred organically. “Every now and then, someone would ask me if I could get them a nice steak for a dinner party or ask, ‘How do I get a pig for a pig roast?’” Murray explains. Wary of disrupting their established commercial service, the company started slowly with home deliveries, finding it not only seamless but also extremely well-received.
“Once people figure out the process and understand that one size doesn’t fit all, we can really get you whatever suits your family,” explains Murray. Customers, he says, “are hooked.”
