“People are interested to hear that the cow used for the meat they’re eating today was just standing in a field down the street a couple days ago,” Owens says. “We hear lots of positive feedback about that.”

 

All meat used in hamburgers at the newly opened Tahoe Burger restaurant, located in northwest Reno at 6280 Sharlands Avenue, comes from Wolf Pack Meats, operated by the University of Nevada, Reno’s College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources and situated on land at the Main Station Field Laboratory on Mill Street.

 

“They came in and got about 30 pounds of beef for a taste test” says Mike Holcomb, Wolf Pack Meats manager, remembering the day he first got the call from Owens. “Then they let us know we were the favorite, and the process all started from there.”

 

Favorite it was. In fact, as Owens recalls, the taste test revealed a hands down winner.

 

“It was overwhelming,” she remembers of the taste test, which took into account the opinions of about 70 of the owners’ friends and family. “The taste, the quality — everyone really enjoyed the burgers made from Wolf Pack Meat.”

 

She says the partnership with a local meat provider is in line with the team’s business philosophy.

 

“We want the local community to support us, so it’s important we support local business,” she says, noting the restaurant also uses a local bakery for its bread.

 

Peters highlights an additional benefit to using Wolf Pack Meats: the flexibility of the partnership.

 

“We had no idea how to anticipate volume, so Mike was great to work with as we figured it all out in the beginning,” he says.

 

Now, the locally owned restaurant has a demand for about 1,000 pounds of fresh, local ground beef weekly, which Holcomb estimates makes about 4,000 burgers.

 

“We’re very happy with the partnership,” says Ron Pardini, acting dean of the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Resources. “It’s examples like this that highlight the university’s commitment to partnerships with local business.”