WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES JULY 11, 2019 31
When Ehmer ruled the roost in Ridgewood
BY THE OLD TIMER
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
Are you hungry? If you happen to
be a carnivore, you will be by the
time you read about the history
of one of Ridgewood’s most popular
butchers, Karl Ehmer.
Karl Ehmer was born in a small
village near Stuttgart, Germany, in
1909, and came to America in the fall of
1903 when he was 21 years old. He got a
job in a butcher shop in the Yorkville
section of Manhattan, and worked
hard to save enough money to open
his own store.
In 1932, even though the country was
in the depths of the Great Depression,
he decided to strike out on his own and
he opened a Jersey Pork butcher shop
in Manhattan.
The photograph shows Karl Ehmer
standing in front of his shop in 1932.
He had a special sale on smoked ham
at 17 cents per pound, and off ered to
cook it free of charge.
But business conditions were
difficult, and he struggled to
keep his store open. Finally,
he went back to work at his
old job.
However, he still had ambitions of
operating his own business and, a short
time later, he tried again with his own
store, again in Manhattan. This time,
he prospered, and eventually, in 1941,
he opened a store in the Ridgewood/
Glendale area at 61-14 Myrtle
Ave., offering a large selection of
quality bolognas.
The store proved highly successful.
Nine years later, on Nov. 2, 1950, he
opened a much larger retail store and
a manufacturing plant at 62-10 Myrtle
Ave. Trucks lined up at the curb of the
new plant and retail store, advertising
quality pork products.
As his business continued to grow,
he moved to larger quarters in
November 1958, at 63-35 Fresh Pond
Road on the corner of Menahan Street.
All of his products were made, at one
time, in this plant.
The list of Karl Ehmer products is
substantial, including frankfurters,
knockwurst, bratwurst, Black
Forest ham, Westphalian ham,
kassler rippchen (brined pork
chops), braunschweiger liverwurst,
pinklewurst (Bavarian sausage),
lachsschinken (smoked pork loin),
head cheese, leberkaese (similar to
bologna), schwaebischer farmers
salami and Tyrolerwurst (an Austrian
sausage).
Over the years, Karl Ehmer
relocated upstate and opened his
own farm on Noxon Road in La
Grangeville, New York, where he
raised many of the animals for his
products. He also held an annual
Oktoberfest there for his friends
and family.
By the 1970s, Karl Ehmer had more
than 50 franchises across New York
City, Long Island Pennsylvania and
even Florida, along with fi ve cattle and
livestock farms and a slaughterhouse.
The company boasted a slogan, “The
Best Butcher on the Block.”
During the 1970s and 1980s, it was
not uncommon to fi nd Karl Ehmer
products and stores advertised on
TV. The company’s namesake starred
in one of the commercials, shot from
the kitchen of his upstate farmhouse.
In the spot, he boasts in his German
accent about his bratwurst being so
delicious, “it
even makes the
vegetables taste
good.”
Along with
fine cold cuts
and other cuts
of meat, a Karl
Ehmer shopper
could walk into
one of the stores
and fi nd an array
of imported
G e r m a n
p r o d u c t s
i n c l u d i n g
chocolate, cake
mixes, pickled
goods, spaetzle and preserves.
Karl Ehmer died in 1989, and his
grandsons continued to operate the
company that bore his name. However,
the following three decades would
see a variety of changes including
economic downturns, shifting
demographics in the Ridgewood/
Glendale area where Ehmer gained a
loyal following and dietary trends in
which many people turned away from
regular consumption of processed
meats.
One by one, Karl Ehmer stores
across the New York City area closed.
The fl agship store and manufacturing
plant on Fresh Pond Road held out
as other pork stores across the area
closed down.
Finally, on Sept. 30, 2010, the
Ridgewood store and plant closed. In
a Ridgewood Times article published
that same day (Thursday), Alan
Hanssler, Karl Ehmer company coowner,
said that “rising labor costs
and other expenses, combined with
a struggling economy, brought the
company to the brink of bankruptcy.”
“The 25 workers employed at the
Ridgewood store and plant will
lose their positions today; all were
provided with a month’s notice of the
shutdown in order to fi nd new jobs,”
according to the article. The store and
manufacturing plant would ultimately
be transformed into a self-storage
facility.
The Karl Ehmer company continued
producing its products outside the New
York City area and distributing them
to butcher stores and supermarkets
around the area. The closure of the
Ridgewood Karl Ehmer left just one
butcher shop under the company
banner in Queens: a location on
Horace Harding Expressway in Fresh
Meadows. However, that location
would not last the decade; it closed in
2017, according to Yelp.
Today, you can still fi nd Karl Ehmer
products at grocery stores across
Queens; the company also continues
to operate stores in
Long Island; Allentown,
P e n n s y l v a n i a ;
Danbury, Connecticut
and Hillsdale, New
Jersey. If all else fails,
you can even order
them online from the
company’s website,
karlehmer.com.
Sources: The Aug. 8,
1985 and Sept. 30, 2010
Ridgewood Times, Yelp
and YouTube.
* * *
If you have any
remembrances or old
photographs of “Our
Neighborhood: The Way It Was” that
you would like to share with our
readers, please write to the Old Timer,
c/o Ridgewood Times, 38-15 Bell Blvd.,
Bayside, NY 11361, or send an email to
editorial@ridgewoodtimes.com. Any
print photographs mailed to us will be
carefully returned to you upon request.
The exterior of the former Karl Ehmer store and manufacturing plant on Fresh Pond Road in
Ridgewood, as pictured in February 2011. Ridgewood Times archives
Karl Ehmer at his
fi rst butcher shop
in 1932.
The Karl Ehmer facility on Myrtle Avenue in Glendale in the 1940s.
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