Inside six decades of Double DD Meats
By: Erin Freeman | Lynnwood Times Staff
For nearly 66 years, Double DD Meats, a butcher shop in Mountlake Terrace, has provided its local community with fresh and natural meats at what owner Kim Nygard calls unbeatable prices.
“We give the people what they want and have gone back to old-fashioned ways where we do everything, instead of bringing it from all over,” said Nygard. “We try to do as much as we can homemade and with fair prices.”
The old-school butcher offers natural meats, game & deli staples, that can be supplemented with a wide range of sauces & rubs. Popular items include rib eyes and any item from aisles crowded with hot sauce and BBQ sauce, says Nygard.
While the butcher shop now prides itself as a family-owned business, it originated differently. In 1955, John Dallas and Dan Murray launched Double DD Meats. Then, two years later, Nygard’s dad became employed at the butcher shop as a cleanup kid. Eventually, he was presented with an opportunity to buy the business due to both co-owners not having any children working in the shop.
“They ended up selling it to my dad, nobody knows what year,” explained Nygard. “It was kind of like a handshake back in the day. We couldn’t even tell you how much he paid for it.”
Joining her dad and brothers as an employee at Double DD Meats in 1985, Nygard, wanting to keep the business going, bought it from her father in 2014.
Five years after Nygard joined her family at the shop, a large arson fire enflamed Double DD Meats in 1990, burning it completely to the ground. And when a neighboring business was unable to come back from the fire, the store found a silver lining, it was able to expand. The location is now over three times its original size.
“It was tragic, but it was the best thing that’s ever happened to us because we were able to expand at that time,” said Nygard.
Justin Nygard, both an employee at Double DD Meats and Kim Nygard’s son, says that working for the family business is incredibly rewarding, and loves providing his community with, “A great product that people are happy to buy.”
“Today I had a customer come back and say, ‘a month ago you recommended this seasoning for my prime rib and it was so good I had to tell you’,” said Nygard. “They’re coming back after a month and going out of their way to tell me how good it was. It makes me feel good and it’s a common occurrence here.”
“We pride ourselves in being there for our customers, he added. “And our customers are the best people in the world.”
