Stanley Lobel’s oldest son David calls himself the black sheep in the family as he spent almost seven years practicing law before eventually finding his way back to the family business at their Madison Avenue butcher shop.
“We were all indoctrinated into the business at a young age,” explains David, who describes eagerly jumping out of bed at 3 a.m. on Saturdays so that he could accompany his father to work. “It wasn’t just going to work with Dad—we would go to the meat wholesalers and I got to wear a jacket and hard hat and go into the freezing ice boxes,” he recalls fondly. Back at the shop, eight-year-old David was too young to cut meat; instead he was given a rag and a bottle of Windex and instructed to start cleaning the showcases. By late morning he would go upstairs and take a nap and look forward to what his uncle Leon and father would make them for lunch.
