The Butcher Says Goodbye

Ed Buikema, head butcher at DeVries Grocery and Market is hanging up his apron after 45 years of serving customers their meat.

  Ed Buikema is a guy who knows a thing or two about meat—he's been working with it for close to 50 years. La Grange residents know Buikema as their neighborhood butcher at DeVries Grocery and Market, 806 Arlington Ave. in La Grange. DeVries is the kind of place where you can still get your meat cut and wrapped in white butcher's paper. There are not a lot of places like DeVries anymore—and they don't make 'em like Ed either. Buikema, who celebrated his 65th birthday on Tuesday, is hanging up his apron at the end of the week and moving on to retirement after 45 years with the DeVries family. "You know, some days I feel like I could do this for another 20 years and others... I'm ready to go," Buikema said with a chuckle that made his eyes …

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About Town

I Scream, You Scream, DeVries Helped Save the Ice Cream!

During last week’s power outage DeVries Grocery lent a hand to a business without power by storing Tates Ice Cream Shop’s ice cream until power was restored later in the week.

Last week’s power outages were trying on everyone. I was one of the lucky ones that had my power restored after 12 hours, although at the time I didn’t feel so lucky. I lost all the food in my fridge and freezer for the second time in three weeks. Driving around town I saw extension cords running across streets and heard generators still going on Thursday. That’s when I felt fortunate. Imagine if you owned an ice cream shop and the power went out. What would you do? Maria Marciniec, owner of Tates Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Shop, 25 S. Ashland Ave., experienced that scenario last week. Marciniec is a  friendly, upbeat woman who gets to know all her customers by name. She quickly jumped into action by calling Phillies Pizza Bar and Grill, 6300…

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