Anglin’s Adapts to Customers’ Tastes

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – It’s around 4 p.m. on a Tuesday and the rush has just started for Gary Anglin.

“It’s been kind of slow all day, and then it just hits you,” he says as he tends to a line six-deep at Anglin’s Thrift-T Meats & Produce, 2968 McCartney Road.

“I probably draw from a five-mile radius. There’s not much between here and New Castle,” he says.

Anglin’s has operated in the Lincoln Knolls Plaza on the east side of Youngstown for 26 years, and the owner says that business remains steady.

The market sells a variety of meats that range from oxtail to standard ground beef.

“People come in from Lowellville, from Campbell and some from western Pennsylvania, but it’s mostly the city’s East Side,” he says.

The ethnic and cultural makeup of the East Side has changed over the years, Anglin notes, which has led to a rise in sales of ethnic foods.

“There’s an influx of people from the Caribbean,” he’s observed, which has helped increase sales of foods from that part of the world.

Sales of oxtail, for example, are greater than ever.

He’s also seen an increase of sales of Latin American foods because the East Side has become home to more Latinos over the past decade.

Pork shoulders, for example, must have a layer of skin at the bottom to fit a particular Latino recipe. “If it doesn’t have a layer of skin, it won’t sell,” he says.

Anglin always carried these items, he says, but the quantities and mix have changed along with how the community has changed.

“You’d be surprised how many people get beef bacon, and there’s not a whole lot of places that carry it,” he says. “There are a lot of cultures that don’t eat pork.”

Over the years, Anglin has watched as businesses move in and out of the plaza, developed by the Cafaro Co. and later sold. Still, he says this location has served his business well, and he intends to stay.

“It’s as good as it gets,” he says.

Pictured: An influx of residents from the Caribbean and Latin America brings demand for less common items such as oxtail, says Gary Anglin, owner of Anglin’s Thrift-T Meats.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.