R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press |
At Buried Stone Farmer’s Market on Sheridan Road in Escanaba, Barbara DeHaan weighs a portion of beef, Kenny Tousignant replaces a tray, and Elliot Eckstein takes a phone call.
NOTE: The Daily Press will be featuring a series of articles on local businesses, highlighting their history and what makes them unique. The series will run on a regular basis in the Daily Press.
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ESCANABA — In a space on Escanaba’s Sheridan Road that’s used to housing meat markets, a new business has stepped in to continue that heritage in an innovative manner. Though still gearing up for a grand opening likely to happen in the spring, Buried Stone Farmers Market has been butchering meat and selling fresh and frozen cuts to customers for the last few months.
The shop occupies 1518 Sheridan Rd., known for years as the beloved Viau’s Market. More recently, but briefly, it was Bougie’s.
Stating that his business is mostly distribution, owner and founder Elliot Eckstein believes that Buried Stone’s success so far may be chalked up to his business model, dedication to humane and sustainable farming practices, and a lot of determination.
“I started my business with a quarter cow and 500 bucks, and I started selling at the farmers’ market in Marquette,” Eckstein said.
Originally from Oshkosh, Wis., Eckstein now lives on a farm in Rock with his wife, Leeanna, who is from Marquette.
The couple started hobby farming around 2016.
“We did pigs and cows … kind of did a homesteading thing, and we ended up growing it to where we are now,” Eckstein said.
When choosing a name for their homestead, the pair wanted to derive something from their surname. “Eckstein” means “cornerstone” in German; “Cornerstone Farm” wasn’t unique enough, but they wanted to keep the “stone” part. It was Leeanna who came up with the name that stuck — “Buried Stone Farms” — suitable for a farm in Rock, an area notorious for rocks embedded shallowly in the soil.
Commenting that his family has had a window and door business for over 140 years,
Eckstein said that entrepreneurship is in his blood, and that persistence has driven his journey.
2022 was the first year he started going to farmers’ markets, selling basic frozen cuts of beef from cows raised at Buried Stone Farms that had been bought as calves. It didn’t take long before he started selling to restaurants.
“Our success is because of the folks we serve, is what it came down to,” Eckstein said. “All the community support we had in Marquette and Escanaba … I made a system that restaurants and other places liked.”
Certain values are essential to the system.
“People want one thing: high quality products that are not gonna hurt them,” Eckstein said. “They don’t want products that (have) food coloring and dyes and things like that in ’em — they want healthy, grass-fed beef, humanely-raised pork, sustainably farmed.”
He said that the quality of the meat that people notice is largely due to farming practices, but also having a clear relationship between farmer and butcher.
He described an opposite situation that results in poor quality product:
“A lot of times, farmers don’t know what the butcher wants; the butcher doesn’t know what the farmers want, and then you get — garbage. A farmer just wants the most amount of money he can, so he gives the animal whatever it’ll take to get it big, and the butcher wants the cheapest product.”
For about a year, concurrent to selling at farmers’ markets, Eckstein worked as a truck driver, and used his time in the cab to grow his own business.
“Right out of my semi, I would be on the phone, calling restaurants and handling our online orders,” he said. He also didn’t miss the opportunity to approach potential commercial customers when out to eat at restaurants.
Buried Stone Farms started conducting online sales early on, also while attending farmers’ markets. They ship nationwide, and Eckstein himself drives deliveries locally.
As the business grew, Buried Stone began to source from a network of farms in addition to their own. Many are in the Upper Peninsula, some are in Wisconsin and Lower Michigan, and Eckstein said he always seeks out providers with his same goals for well-raised animals.
“Having people that care from start to finish really matters, and it shows in our quality,” Eckstein said.
As the business became more popular, and five freezers occupied the Ecksteins’ garage, the need to grow Buried Stone’s physical space became evident.
Eckstein said he was at a craft show in Marquette in May of 2023 when someone approached him — a relative of the Viaus who clued him in to a vacancy at the old meat market on Sheridan, which had been foreclosed on.
“I went over to the bank and said, ‘I’d like to buy your facility.’ That started in May, and then by September, we closed,” Eckstein recounted. “I’m a man of faith, and — it was all the Lord. I truly believe that. … We had been thinking about it, praying about it, and it just kind of fell in our lap.”
They cleaned the place up this past autumn and hired some staff, including full-time butcher, Kenny Tousignant, who has been in the meat industry for years and said he learned most of what he knows from Wally and Jeanette Viau.
The store opened under the name “Buried Stone Farmers Market” and almost immediately began getting requests to butcher people’s deer harvests. Though it hadn’t been the intention, Eckstein said they processed around 400 deer this season.
From their network of farms, the store receives shipments of meat every week.
Fresh cuts are lined neatly behind the glass of the butcher counter: Beef tenderloin, ribeye steak, round steam, boneless charcoal steak, boneless pork chops, t-bone steak and many more products are seen next to cheeses, mushrooms from U.P. Gourmet, mock chicken wings and bacon-wrapped stuffed jalepenos.
The freezer is well-stocked with brats, patties, sliced pork belly, lamb chops, a variety of sausages and more. There’s seafood like mahi, lobster, wild king crab legs, sea scallops, yellowfin tuna and shrimp.
Eckstein says that while the market tries new things every week, they try to have a grass-fed Upper Peninsula local beef out every day.
“And we’ve been told by multiple people — we’ve grown a reputation for having the best potato sausage in the area,” Eckstein said. “We’re the only place that I know of that carries beef potato sausage.”
Hot, fully-cooked ribs have recently been added as a ready-made meal, and Eckstein said hot dogs and coffee will be available, too.
Bulk orders are available with advance notice, and organ meat and beef fat may be sold, too.
Right now, although the meat section is full, Eckstein is still seeking to fill the rest of the store. There are a few items like seasonings, chips, bread and the gourmet mushrooms, but still a lot of shelf space awaits product placement, and the business owner is open to suggestions.
“If people want to see stuff here and I can get it here, I’ll do that,” Eckstein said.
He pointed out that some of the items Buried Stone Farmers Market carries cater to vegans, and he’s looking to supply more that continue to round it out as a healthy living store, like gluten-free products.
Seeking growth, Eckstein encouraged potential vendors to get in touch, and also asks customers for feedback.
“We’re always changing in the sense of bringing in new items, but by the time the grand opening is, we would love to have this store a little more full, have some liquor, some dairy items — we’d love to bring that stuff back,” he said.
In the soft opening phase now, Eckstein said he’d like to have the grand opening in March or April.
Current official hours are from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday, but sometimes they operate later — “If the light it on and it says ‘open,’ people are more than welcome to come in and buy something,” Eckstein said.