The Meat Hook

At 10:30 at night my phone rings. It’s Harry: “What are you doing?”

“I’m cooking dinner.”

“Me too. So guess what? The guy with the band saw just called and said he was an hour away.”

If I wasn’t so unbelievably happy to see our beautiful vintage Biro band saw I might have started yelling obscenities at my shoes. This guy is delivering a band saw at 11:30 at night… on a Sunday? I’d like to think myself some sort of unsentimental to the core New Yorker but Sunday in the middle of the night? Really?

After doing a rush job on our dinner of dashi marinated tofu, mustard greens and rice I hop on my bike and zip through the chilly streets to the Lab where Brent and Harry are waiting on the sidewalk in a pool of orange sodium lamp light staring around up and down the street obviously looking for the guy who must, obviously, be lost somewhere.

After two long phone conversations that went like: “No. You’re really close but you went to far. Just make a left and then another left on Manhattan and then the next left and then you’re going to have to pull a U-turn on Meeker. No. A left!” the moving truck pulled up and we were soon watching our Biro 3334 band saw coming off the lift gate, sparkling in the crisp Autumn air.

I guess this would be a good time to talk about why we’re standing in the street waiting for a band saw to show up on a moving truck at midnight. Well… our band saw is not from around here. It’s from Groton, NY actually. Why would we be shipping a band saw (and a meat grinder and a walkin…) from the middle of nowhere to NYC? Quite simply, you just can’t get that kind of stuff around here in used, in good shape  and at a reasonable price. Have you ever walked down the Bowery, gazing at equipment glistening on the sidewalk and dreamed of opening that table side restaurant you’ve always wanted? Well those guys pay a ton of $$ for rent and they got to get it from somewhere or someone. Guess what? That someone is you! Long story short we had to buy this band saw off a guy in Groton who used to have a butcher shop and besides being in pretty great shape (it’s hard to hurt one of these old tanks) it was rather cheap, even with the shipping.

If you look closely you’ll notice that the head of the saw is made completely of cast aluminum. We did and we’re now planning on getting a buffer/polisher on that case and shining up the head to a chrome-like shine as well as making off and painting the “BIRO” on the side of saw head with a two-tone of Meat Hook colors red and cream. Please tune in for the next episode of Pimp my Band Saw.