P.I.'s closing after 50 years
Published Saturday November 7th, 2009
Richard's Meat Market is up for sale
It's the end of an era as Richard's Meat Market, better known as P.I.'s, is set to close next Saturday. The business has served Metro Moncton for half a century, first on King Street for a generation, and then at its "new" location on Milner Avenue since 1986.
The company was started by Alban "P.I" Richard and was where Alban's son Donald learned the butcher trade.
Donald, who would also become known as P.I. by the market's customers over time, eventually took over the business from his father, and moved it from the East End to the West End when construction of Wheeler Boulevard forced removal of the business and the Richard home from the end of King Street.
Donald typically worked six days a week, 16 or 17 hours a day, and then spent a chunk of his Sundays at the butcher shop cleaning the equipment.
His wife Joyce said this week it could be difficult to get him to the family cottage, because he enjoyed being in his butcher shop so much.
"How many people can get out of bed every day and say, 'Boy, I'm excited to go to work,'" she said of her husband.
Working alongside Donald through all of that was Laurie Belliveau, a 42-year employee who first worked for Donald's father.
Since Donald died suddenly from a heart attack last May at age 62, Laurie and Joyce have been keeping the business going.
Joyce, however, had not ever worked at the shop before her husband's death and Laurie, who turned 65 this month, wants to retire, so the business is up for sale.
Since word started spreading, Joyce said she's had people coming from all over, even parts of Nova Scotia, to stop in one more time and reminisce about the conversations they had there over the years with her husband and Laurie.
In many ways, Richard's was as much a meet market as a meat market, where folks gathered to talk current events and buy a bit of beef almost as an afterthought.
"People keep coming by and saying that kind of service is gone forever," Joyce said. "People don't stop, they don't take the time to talk."
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