Butcher shop Schaller & Weber continues to expand in NYC and beyond

Schaller and Weber, an old-school German market and butcher shop on the Upper East Side that’s been around since 1937, recently expanded to the Lower East Side with a new store. They’ve designed a “Lower East Side Sausage Series,” three new sausages that will go on the menu at The Egg Shop, The Flower Shop and Café Select. Photo Credit: Charles Eckert

Fall means Oktoberfest, and there’s no better place for German treats than Schaller & Weber.

The original butcher shop has been on the same Yorkville corner since 1937. The namesakes, Ferdinand Schaller and Tony Weber, specialized in pork and produced each link there by hand. Today, Jeremy Schaller continues the legacy of butchers and sausage makers, after taking over the family business in 2014.

A large black-and-white photo of Ferdinand behind the counter seems to watch over his grandson, whose earliest memories as a kid were of his grandmother introducing him to German candies and marzipan in the neighborhood.

Jeremy Schaller is the third generation of butchers and sausage makers behind Schaller & Weber on the Upper East Side. Photo Credit: David Handschuh/David Handschuh

Jeremy worked in the butcher store as a kid and remembers when the Upper East Side “spoke German as their first language here. The neighborhood was full of 30 different restaurants, dance halls and nightclubs.”

Nowadays, Jeremy says, “people still come back to enjoy the experience of German culture and what the neighborhood was like.”

His grandfather might not recognize the business, however.

“We started as a store half the size, and now I expanded it with Schaller’s Stube next door,” Jeremy says of the sausage bar, which opened in 2015.

The small counter-service spot offers all types of sausages and toppings, from the Steuben’s Reuben to the Po’brat with andouille sausage to a menu of Beyond Sausage vegan offerings.

A sausage from Schaller’s Stube. Photo Credit: David Handschuh/David Handschuh

In addition to expanding next door, Schaller & Weber is bringing its bratwursts outside of the Upper East Side. The butcher shop and a Schaller’s Stube are among the vendors in the new Lower East Side food hall Market Line, opening in the Essex Crossing development this fall. Another Stube is slated to open in Downtown Brooklyn’s DeKalb Market Hall next month. Last year, Austin also got an outpost of the sausage bar.

In anticipation of the Market Line opening, Schaller and Weber recently introduced the L.E.S. Sausage Series, custom sausage blends in collaboration with Lower East Side destinations Egg Shop, The Flower Shop and Cafe Select.

The sausage packs combine traditional German meat preparation with the flavors of each restaurant, Jeremy said. “These sausages truly represent the melting pot that is New York City.”

Schaller & Weber is growing beyond its Upper East Side roots. Photo Credit: David Handschuh/David Handschuh

FIND IT

Schaller & Weber is located at 1624 Second Ave., schallerweber.com