Q & A: Brigantine's "Rich the Butcher"

BRIGANTINE, N.J. - It can be hard out there for a lifeguard. So when someone like Rich "Rich the Butcher" Hill shows up at the Jetty, fires up the Weber, and starts passing up bacon burgers to the Beach Patrol members on the lifeguard stand - and we're talking custom burgers where the bacon is blended into the mix - legendary status is immediately bestowed. Rich the Butcher, 56-year-old owner of the Colonial Village Meat Market in West Chester, has very much earned most-honored-shoobie status at the Jetty, a drive-on south-end beach in Brigantine. As with any good chef, most of his answers end in recipes.

You're a legend in Brigantine.

Hill: Hahahahahaha. They call me 'Rich the Butcher.' My other nickname is 'Meat Man.'

What's the story, how did this happen? Are you really a butcher?

I own a meat market in West Chester. I have a house in Brigantine. I don't get there enough. I just got to be friends with a lot of the locals. I'm the kind of guy that's not handy with a lot of tools. I'm only handy with my knives. I met a lot of contractors. I get these guys to fix my house. With Sandy hitting, all of a sudden I had my house raised seven feet. So I met these guys through being on the beach, getting them to work on my house, we got to be friends.

And so naturally that means food.

My goal is to start feeding people. I always try to take care of the lifeguards as much as possible. I park over by the lifeguard stand. The boys are working so hard. One day they had like 10 incidents. They do such a great job. I'm so honored to see what they do.

What's your basic lifeguard thank-you meal?

I start firing up my grill, and I start sending over my bacon burgers. I have a recipe and started tinkering with it recently. I take my beef and grind it out, take chunks of bacon and put it in the mix and the bacon chunks blend throughout the hamburger. And I make hamburger patties on my machine. 'Do you guys want bacon burgers?' Usually I send them up some bacon burgers.

Never refused, I'm sure. Taking care

of the lifeguards is kind of a lost art these days.

I fully agree. They are underappreciated.

In the old days, in Ventnor, they'd use the showers of people near the beach and probably got fed a lot more.

I feed a lot of my friends on the beach. When you own your own business, I put 70-plus hours a week in. Sometimes, I sneak out a little early on a Saturday afternoon. I'm getting ready to cook a feast on the beach the next day. I'll cook baby-back ribs, slow cook them for three hours, put a dry-rub seasoning on. The next day, I'll heat them up in the pan on the grill, baste them in their own juices, put them on the grill with a light coating of Stubbs barbecue sauce on them. They come out so flavorful.

I bet it causes a bit of a stir on the beach.

I start bringing out ribs, and I say, "Here come the seagulls flocking over to the grill," but I'm talking about the people.

Are you footing the bill for all this?

Yeah.

That's very nice of you.

I enjoy cooking. The meat I carry is so good. I pay less than the average person. It's not like I walk out of a store with it. I pay my costs. I'll get a pork satay on sticks. I do them on kebab sticks. Cut it kind of thin, make a teriyaki, Soy Vey teriyaki sauce, put it in a pot, heat it up, put some crushed red peppers, then you take crunchy peanut butter and keep applying it, keep stirring, until you get the thickness you want.

So who other than the lucky lifeguards are partaking?

My wife, stepchildren, my friends. The locals from down the beach. I love it. I go down to the beach, play horseshoes all day, and cook and eat.

How did you find the Jetty? That's a real locals' beach.

When I first got my drive-on pass, I went to the north end of the island, thought, 'This isn't really that great.' Someone told me, 'You got to come down to the Jetty.' When I pulled out hoagies, they said, 'We can't believe you're eating hoagies.' I said, 'I don't have a grill.' [The locals] said, 'We got grills, you just bring the meat.' It's like tailgating an Eagles game. We have Eagles season tickets. I just took our tailgating experience and brought it to the beach. I took one of my big cutting blocks, which covers the full width of my truck on my tailgate. I got my grills. And my knife sharpener.

Interview condensed and edited.