Historic Harry Ochs Butcher Stand Leaves Reading Terminal Market
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A landmark butcher at the Reading Terminal Market has pulled up steaks following a beef over his prime vending spot. The stand has suddenly closed.
The old-school "Harry Ochs" stand (above) had occupied a space in the center of the venerable market for 105 years. Now it's vacant, because owner Nicholas Ochs, the current operator, took his butcher's block and signs away in the midst of a dispute with market management.
Nick is now working as a butcher at the Main Street Market in Manayunk, says he was not a deadbeat, and says he was upset that management was pushing him to pay back rent at a higher rate after he signed a new lease last August -- three times higher than his previous lease (see related story).
"Management saw us as a museum-type exhibit there and would not let us evolve," Ochs told KYW Newsradio today.
Other longtime merchants, like Tom Nicolosi, are sorry to see the Ochs family name gone.
"It's not going to be easily filled -- those guys were giants," says Nicolosi, who has run the Tommy DiNic's pork sandwich shop for more than 30 years.
Nick Ochs had taken over the family business from his father, also called Harry, who died in 2009. That Harry Ochs, who had run the place since 1947, was credited as the Merchants Association president with saving the market from extinction in the late 1980s.
Reported by Steve Tawa, KYW Newsradio 1060
