HOOKSETT -- Thirteen area butchers set out to prove that they're a cut above the rest when they sharpened their knives and made quick work of nearly 30 pounds of beef apiece during a meat cutting challenge held inside the chilly Tri-Town Ice Arena Thursday morning.
The friendly competition among these highly trained Texas Roadhouse butchers from New Hampshire and other New England states was a chance for them to practice and perfect their cutting skills while fighting for a spot in a national contest with a $25,000 grand prize at stake.
With the clock ticking during the timed one-hour competition, meat cutter Harold Linares-Perez made every second count as he carefully sliced and inspected his work. He was the last to finish, but it paid off as he took first place.
Linares-Perez, who lives in Concord and works at the local Texas Roadhouse, has worked for the company for nearly 19 years and has been cutting meat for about 12.
"I love it, and I love to teach people how to cut meat," he said. "Every day for me, I learn something different."
Now in its 20th year, Thursday's local competition featured butchers from across the region who were participating in the first round of the "Qualifier Meat Cutting Challenge." Each was given 20 to 30 pounds of beef, consisting of one sirloin, one filet and one ribeye, which they then had to cut within the one-hour time limit. Their work was judged on quality and yield. The butcher who yielded the most steaks with the highest quality was deemed the local winner.
The region's top scorers will advance to the semi-finals in January, where they'll cut against each other in hopes of grabbing a spot in the 2025 national competition in St. Louis in March. The competition will be whittled down to a Top 10 with the first-place winner being crowned "Meat Cutter of the Year" and taking home that $25,000 grand prize.
"It's a competition to really show appreciation for our butchers and what they do. We hand-cut steaks at Texas Roadhouse so it's a big deal for us. We celebrate them by having this competition every year," said Jason Mennie, senior director of legendary food at Texas Roadhouse.
In many ways, the competition serves as a coaching and teaching opportunity. "We've got new cutters and we've got old cutters who have been doing it for a long time. It's constant training. If you can butcher at Texas Roadhouse, you can butcher anywhere. Some chefs can't even do this. It's a real special art," Mennie said.
All of the meat for the competition was provided by the Concord Texas Roadhouse, which took all of the professionally cut pieces back to be served to its customers.
Hannah Elliott, managing partner at the Concord location, said most of the competitions are held at ice rinks because temperatures in the 30s provide the ideal environment. This is the first time the Hooksett rink has hosted the event.
Nick Stiles, a meat cutter from Merrimack who works at a Texas Roadhouse in Nashua, enjoyed slicing with his meat cutting peers, but was realistic about his chances of scoring big in such a tough competition.
"You expect the worst and hope for the best," said and has been with the company for a total of about 21 years.
The competing butchers admitted that meat cutting isn't an easy skill to learn. "It's a lot of numbers," Linares-Perez said.
It also requires working in 35-degree temperatures in a walk-in cooler for several hours at a time, but the frigid conditions don't seem to bother them. "It's cold," Linares-Perez said, "but it's good for me. I love it."