Seattle, WA | Restaurant, Smokehouse & Butcher Shop | Butcher Box Subscription

‍

Key results

‍

• Zero food waste: Pre-orders locked in advance mean Tyler orders exactly what he needs each month, no more and no less.
• A community of roughly 100 households: greeted by name at hand-to-hand pickup through Table22, not left on a porch like an anonymous delivery.
• A cooking class in every box: each month's cuts come with a QR code linking to a video of Tyler himself explaining exactly how to cook them.

‍

Meat the team

‍

Since opening in West Seattle in September 2019, Lady Jaye has built its identity around a nine-and-a-half-foot custom smoker named Cletus and a kitchen philosophy that doesn't waste a single part of the animal. Co-chef and owner Tyler Palagi trained in Portland and worked in a two-Michelin-starred kitchen before landing in Seattle, and he's spent his career close to the block ever since. Around Lady Jaye, he's known as the team's mouthpiece, the one most often talking through a cut of meat like it's the most interesting thing in the room.

‍

That obsession with the whole animal now lives in two places: the restaurant, and Lady Jaye's West Seattle butcher counter. The team sources from a single Pacific Northwest farm, and provides cuts most home cooks have never touched (zabuton and bavette, anyone?), along with a lesson in how to cook them.

‍

Betting on the home cook

‍

By the time COVID hit, just six months after opening, Lady Jaye had already had to adapt once. He calls the current version of the business "Lady Jaye 4.0," and points out something he noticed happening beyond his own dining room throughout all that change: a trend of more people cooking at home.

‍

Rather than treat home cooking as competition for the restaurant, Tyler built a monthly butcher box with Table22 that let him teach as much as sell. Every box arrives with a theme, a recipe, and a QR code that goes straight to a video of Tyler walking through exactly how to cook what's inside. True to his reputation as the shop's mouthpiece, standing in front of a camera explaining a cut comes naturally to him - and his members love it.

‍

No two boxes alike

‍

Members can choose a Standard Box, built for two to three meals, or a Premium Box for a bigger household or a bigger appetite. Each one rotates through dry-aged beef, heritage pork, house-smoked meat, a spice rub, and a recipe card linking to a cooking demo.

‍

Keeping a monthly box fresh takes real creativity, a good challenge that comes with a successful, longstanding club. Tyler and his meat company partner sit down together and look back through what they've sent out, sometimes as far as 18 months, to make sure each box still feels like a discovery. Even when a cut does come back around, he'll dress it differently the second time: a new rub, a different spice blend, an accoutrement that changes how it cooks or plates.

‍

Tyler still assembles every box by hand, one more way to keep his own stamp on every box that goes out the door.

‍

Getting to zero waste

‍

Table22's pre-order model means Tyler knows exactly how many boxes he's building before he orders from his purveyors. That kind of visibility solves one of the most persistent P&L headaches in hospitality: food waste.

We get our purchase orders solidified two weeks prior to doing the boxes. So then I order exactly the amount, so there's zero waste.

— Tyler Palagi, Chef/Owner, Lady Jaye

‍

That predictability gives Tyler room to focus where it counts. He tracks the cost of a box, a jar, even a lid, closely enough to know exactly where his margin lives, which lets him maximize profitability while still keeping the curation interesting every month.

‍

Finding your people

‍

With around 100 members now moving through pickup day each month, Tyler has built the kind of regular, name-by-name relationships that most subscription businesses never get close to. It's where he hears directly what lands, and what gets people genuinely excited, like the moment someone spots an unfamiliar cut in their box.

‍

If I say pork cheeks, for instance, they're like, 'oh my God, I was so excited to see pork cheeks.' And I was like, yes, these are my people.

— Tyler Palagi, Chef/Owner, Lady Jaye

‍

That kind of reaction is exactly what keeps Tyler energized about the club. It's rewarding to see members get excited about what he's teaching them, a two-way exchange that feels less like a transaction and more like sharing a passion with people who get it.

‍

Most members choose to pick up in person for exactly that reason: it's where the relationship actually happens. But when members do opt for delivery, they're getting the same personal touch, not a box left on a porch. Table22 hand-delivers, and for Tyler, that difference is the whole point.

‍

There's a reason we use Table22, because it's that hand-to-hand drop-off. It's not like [other delivery services], chuck it on your porch and kick the door. Table22 is great. We love that relationship.

— Tyler Palagi, Chef/Owner, Lady Jaye

‍

And the club itself is far from finished taking shape. Tyler talks about the business, and himself, as something still very much in motion: "it's continuing to evolve, I'm continuing to evolve." For a club built on keeping things interesting, that's exactly the point.

‍

Our platform, your cuts. Welcome to the club.