When Herb Edwards opened Edwards Meats as a small counter behind a friend’s fruit stand in 1962, Wheat Ridge looked almost nothing like it does today. Sixty-three years later, Herb’s grandson, Darin, runs the same family business, one of the few shops of its kind that has stood the test of time.
During a 1966 snowstorm, the Edwards family and their business partner, Abner Becerra, moved the business across 44th Avenue, and that same location still houses the shop today. Now in its third generation of family ownership, Edwards Meats is ruBy Darin Edwards, who began working there at the age of 10. “My dad had me start from nothing – he had me doing everything that we do here,” he says. “It really paid off in the long run, because I still know how to do everything, and I still get my hands dirty and can do what needs to be done around here.”
Those decades of experience inform how Darin runs the business today. They also helped carry the shop through harder times, including the early 1990s, when a smaller local population and a larger number of competing meat markets made staying in business difficult. “We just powered through it,” Darin recalls…