A need to reconnect with his Dickinson County community motivated Jeff Muraro to switch careers from executive sales in the tech industry to knowledgeable butcher.
A decade ago, Muraro, 58, and his wife, Michelle, opened Borderland Specialty Meats, Foods and Smokehouse – a rare combination in the U.P. but one that proved successful in this city of nearly 3,000.
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Ann Dallman“This is a family-run operation. We enjoy it because we work with and are near our family and friends,” says Muraro, who was born and raised in Norway. “When you come to Norway, you are part of a community.”
The switch from sales to food came after years of spending time on the road and mulling ideas about food. A family background in food also played a part.
Muraro’s grandparents made sausages for the family when he was a young boy. Later, as an adult, he started making sausage for himself and his friends at hunting camp, sometimes making 300 pounds “at a crack.” Since those early days he’s gone on to now produce more than 20 kinds of sausage.
“I always cooked, mostly Italian and Polish family recipes,” he reflects. “I cook a lot every day, mostly Italian but I also like Thai cuisine and sushi. The creative part of me is making food and making sausage. I learned a lot about butchering from watching videos on YouTube. I call myself the YouTube butcher.”
And making food, especially sausage, is what Muraro does six days a week.
The shop’s hand-mixed sausages include four varieties of bratwurst: regular, cheddar, jalapeno and cheddar, and mushroom and Swiss. Five varieties of Italian sausages, including classic, garlic lovers, spicy, are also offered.
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Ann DallmanThe selection of meats and seafood at Borderland Specialty Meats, Foods and Smokehouse.“We offer various varieties of sausage including Polish, German, Romanian, Argentinian, etc.,” Muraro explains. Examples include Ed’s Fresh Polish, Ed’s Smoked Polska Kielbasa, JD’s Potato Romanian, and Tuscan chicken sausage. Another favorite is Grandma Angie’s homemade Italian meatballs.
Muraro’s friends and customers have shared treasured family recipes with him. He honors and credits them by using their names and/or initials on the final results. He’s also collaborated with a Green Bay, Wisconsin brewery, using their Octoberfest beer in a sausage and an Irish red ale in a potato sausage.
Borderland Specialty Meats is known for his custom beef cutting, one of the benefits of a smaller butcher shop. There are other benefits too.
“Quality, for one, and knowledge (which is shared) of how to prepare meat,” Muraro says. “We offer high consistency and trust, you know what you’re getting. We sell a lot of steak; rib eyes are the most popular. We also have lots of backyard smokers in the area who come in here.”
Muraro is proud of his snack sticks which come in five flavors: garlic, jalapeno/cheddar, teriyaki, honey barbecue and Polish Kielbasa.
Summer sausages include Kaiser’s (garlic), and jalapeño/cheddar. The shop’s extensive offerings include ground chuck, smoked chickens, pork roasts, porketta, smoked meats, seafood, specialty cheeses, pickled veggies, and imported Italian pastas, risotto and tomato sauce, and local honey and maple syrup.
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Ann DallmanAmong the dry staples at Borderland Specialty Meats, Foods and Smokehouse. In fact, word around the Norway and Iron Mountain areas is that Borderland’s porketta -- a fatty, moist boneless pork roast, often seasoned with herbs -- is favored by Tom Izzo, legendary Michigan State University basketball coach.
“We make everything but the jerky and canned goods which are brought in because they’re licensed out. Our mixes and labels are proprietary. We do “wet aging” of beef on site. The process ages beef in vacuum-sealed plastic bags allowing it to retain moisture which adds tenderness and flavor without losing the weight that can occur in dry aging.
“Our beef is Midwest-raised cattle. It’s unstressed. Corporate farms and corporate stockyards, with up to 20,000 head of cattle, produce stressed cattle out of their natural environment resulting in meat which is not as flavorful,” Muraro says.
Another service? Borderland will process hunters’ venison and wild game into homemade sausages or summer sausages, snack sticks, or burgers.
The business continues to grow every year.
“It’s not explosive growth but we’re growing slowly and steadily as we have over the past five years. If you’re not growing, you’re dying,” Muraro says.
“We had another store in Iron Mountain from 2016 to 2018, next to an ice cream parlor. It never really took off, but it did serve as an expanded ad campaign to our current location,” he adds.
Muraro backs up his enthusiasm for his hometown with community service.
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Ann DallmanHe’ll mark a six-year anniversary on Norway’s City Council in November when he’ll be up for re-election. A member of Norway’s Planning Commission and its DDA, he tries to stay non-partisan. He’s proud that a city the size of Norway has its own hydro-electric dam and described it as a great green energy plant and revenue source.
According to the City of Norway’s website, “A dam and powerhouse were constructed in 1906, and the first power was used in the mines in April 1907. All of the machinery at the Penn mines, with the exception of two hoists, was operated by electric power. In 1947 Penn sold the Sturgeon Falls plant to the City of Norway.
Today, Sturgeon Falls Hydro continues to provide electric power to Norway and the surrounding area. The Hydro produces approximately two-thirds of Norway’s power needs; the city purchases the rest from WPPI.”
His hometown pride and enthusiasm are sentiments shared by others.
“Our town is coming alive this summer,” says Candy Brew, Norway’s mayor. “We’ll have street dances and music in the bandshell. We now have façade improvements and upgrades to our pocket parks, as part of the (Downtown Development Authority) grant improvement program, and our first mural will be installed on our American Legion building.”
"Jeff is a great addition to our community as both a business owner and part of the Norway DDA board," adds Gina Zanon, who is the city's Downtown Development Authority coordinator and event planner. "He’s involved in the community. His philanthropy brightens Christmas in Norway, and he actively participates as one of the holiday’s most well-known figures.”
Ann Dallman has lifelong roots in Michigan’s U.P. She started out as a newspaper reporter/photographer and returned to journalism after retiring from teaching. Her first Middle Grade novel, Cady and the Bear Necklace, received a State History Award (Books/Youth) from the Historical Society of Michigan as well as a Midwest Book Award, New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, was a Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist and a UP Notable Book. Her second book, Cady and the Birchbark Box, also received the Historical Society of Michigan State Award, is also a UP Notable Book and was a finalist in the New Mexico-Arizona 2023 Book Awards.