Butcher Shop Near Me in Dogpatch: Olivier's French Boucherie on Illinois Street

Olivier's Butchery is a French boucherie at 1192 Illinois Street in Dogpatch, open Wednesday from 11am to 6pm and Thursday through Sunday from 10am to 6pm, and closed every Monday and Tuesday. For east-side cooks whose butcher shop near me search lands in Dogpatch, this is the counter where 45-day dry-aged ribeyes, stuffed rôtis and Toulouse sausage at $9.99 a pound share the same glass case.

Olivier Cordier grew up on a farm in Burgundy, where his father was the butcher who taught him the trade, according to a December 2011 profile in 7x7. After cooking in San Francisco restaurant kitchens, he spent a year earning the trust of local ranchers, driving to the livestock market every week before they would sell to him. His wife, Hang Nguyen, a hair stylist from Vietnam, handled the early interviews because his French accent was so thick.

The shop debuted in the summer of 2011 at 1074 Illinois Street, at 22nd, and UrbanDaddy introduced it that June as San Francisco's first French butchery. There was no distributor in those days: Cordier collected the animals himself, and the opening case held Stemple Creek Ranch grass-fed beef, Branigan Family Farms turkey and Gleason Farm pork, plus French cuts such as paleron for braising and bavette, along with heart, bones and tail.

A writer for The Bold Italic, touring the city's butcher counters, watched Cordier unload several halved cows on his own one morning and break them down with little help, while a line stretched out the door. In June 2021 the shop moved one block to its current home at 1192 Illinois, at Humboldt, and tablehopper urged readers to stop by and admire the new cases and layout.

The French method is the reason to come here rather than a supermarket. Cordier's cuts follow the natural seams between muscles instead of slicing across them, which UrbanDaddy noted makes for more even cooking and a juicier steak. The shop says it uses old-world tools to work through the whole animal and ages every piece to order, and its beef is pasture-raised, grain-finished and free of antibiotics and added hormones.

The aging program runs deeper than most counters in the city. The online store lists Prime boneless ribeye at 21, 45 and 69 days, and prime rib roasts at 100 and even 200 days, with the 200-day roast priced at $69.49 a pound for the holidays. That roast is a splurge for a celebration, not a Wednesday dinner; the cheaper way to taste the funk of long aging is a 45-day dry-aged burger patty at $7.49.

Rôti is the house word for poultry that the butchers debone, stuff and tie, ready for the oven. The gluten-free house stuffing combines pork sausage, apricots, prunes, truffle oil and cognac. It fills the chicken ballotine, a semi-boneless leg and thigh wrapped in applewood-smoked bacon that sells for $14 a pound and feeds one or two, while the whole chicken rôti comes with goat cheese and pesto, balsamic dates and figs, or Basque sausage.

Sausages are made in-house from pasture-raised pork with the shop's own spice blend and no preservatives, filler or nitrites. Toulouse links are pork and white wine; there is cheddar jalapeño and Parmesan, Chicken Provençale, and a spicy Moroccan-style merguez sold loose without casing at $12.49 a pound. Coastal Hill Farm eggs are collected from the farm weekly, and chicken hearts, livers and gizzards are sold too.

Ordering ahead is how regulars skip the wait. Weight-priced items online take a 50 percent deposit with the code DEPOSIT, the balance is settled on the scale at pickup, and the butchers ask for 24 hours of lead time; deposits are non-refundable. Curated boxes need 48 hours and are collected Wednesday through Sunday. The Autumn Butchery Box costs $200 if you bring your own bag and includes dry-aged New Yorks, a brick chicken, bavette, merguez and bacon.

Thanksgiving orders are pre-paid and non-refundable, you choose a pickup slot at checkout, and a turkey is not released if you show up outside that window. Changes close on Thursday, November 19. Branigan birds from Woodland are raised 25 to 27 weeks, long enough to develop a self-basting layer of fat, and an 8-to-10-pound whole turkey costs $80, with spatchcocking $20 more.

Walking in on a holiday is the mistake to avoid. A Yelp reviewer who called this the highest-quality butcher around still judged the holiday line not worth the wait, so pre-order and arrive inside your window. For Christmas, roasts are picked up December 19 to 24 or 26 to 31, the shop closes on December 25, and on New Year's Eve it opens only from 10am to 3pm.

From the start the customers skewed European, Nguyen told 7x7 in 2011, and chefs shopped here too, including Laurence Jossel of Nopa. More than 270 reviews on Yelp later, regulars still praise staff who explain which cut suits a recipe and add real cooking tips, a cutting room visible from the counter, and orders of chicken rôti, dry-aged steaks, picanha and marinated chicken.

Large parties are another reason people make the trip. Suckling pigs of 12 to 20 pounds can be ordered online for $245, roaster pigs up to 90 pounds and beyond are arranged by phone, and the butchers will butterfly the animal on request. The shop also sells Australian Wagyu, including a heart-of-ribeye steak, for cooks who want marbling beyond the domestic Prime.

The T Third Street light rail runs down 3rd Street through Dogpatch, and the 23rd Street stop leaves a short walk east to Illinois. The shop sits between 22nd and 23rd beside Humboldt Street, a block from Pier 70. Everything is vacuum sealed, and the online store adds a thermal bag to boxes for $10, useful if dinner is across town.

Carry a pack of merguez a few blocks north on Illinois to Crane Cove Park at 18th Street, a seven-acre bayfront park run by the Port of San Francisco. It has picnic tables and barbecue pits on the lawn, a small beach for wading, and Dogpatch Paddle renting kayaks and paddleboards.

For dinner without cooking, Piccino at 1001 Minnesota Street has been a Dogpatch fixture since 2006, serving pizza, house-made pasta and produce from its own farm in Healdsburg. Dinner runs Wednesday through Sunday from 5pm to 9pm, and like Olivier's it closes Mondays and Tuesdays, so save this corner of Dogpatch for the later part of the week.

Olivier's Butchery, 1192 Illinois Street, San Francisco, CA 94107. Hours are Wednesday 11am to 6pm and Thursday through Sunday 10am to 6pm, closed Monday and Tuesday. Online orders are picked up in store and accept Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo and major cards. Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP for more Dogpatch food stops.