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- 10th Jul 2026
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From their family to yours: the secrets behind award-winning meats at Nicholson’s Butcher
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If you’ve ever wandered into Nicholson’s Butchers on Whitley Bay’s Park View, you’ll know it’s not your average butchers.
The butchers are butchering you can’t help but watch through the glass, the smell of something good coming from the bakery upstairs, and a team who’ll talk you through every cut like they’re recommending a restaurant. It’s the kind of place that turns first-timers into regulars and regulars into devotees, and it’s been doing exactly that since 1914.
Over a century of heritage, four generations of the same family, and a trophy cabinet that keeps filling up. Nicholson’s has become something of a Whitley Bay institution – a butcher, a baker, and a food hall rolled into one, sitting at the heart of a community it’s been serving for more than 110 years.
Today, fourth-generation butcher Kathryn Nicholson runs the business alongside Mark, Kathryn’s cousin, who has been part of the team for over 20 years, keeping the same standards her great-grandad Charles Nicholson set when he first opened the doors.
And underpinning all of it is one very simple question the team asks themselves every single day. “Would you buy it yourself?”
“Every product we source is carefully inspected and checked before it ever reaches our counter. We have a simple saying at Nicholsons: if we wouldn’t proudly serve it to our own family, it will never be good enough for our customers.
“For us, quality and consistency are non-negotiable. It’s why we take the time to source the very best, inspect everything thoroughly, and never settle for “good enough”. Our customers deserve the very best every single time they shop with us.”
100 YEARS OF BUTCHERING BUILT ON FAMILY
Four generations is a long time to keep anything going, let alone a butcher’s shop in the same spot on the same street. For Kathryn, the business has been part of her life from the very beginning, long before she officially took the reins. “If they need a hand doing deliveries, you go and help. If they need a hand making pigs in blankets at Christmas, you go and do it.“
She’s been running Nicholson’s for 14 years now, and when her dad stepped back around six years ago, he handed things over in the best possible way. “Dad still pops in every day and is always on hand – but I am incredibly lucky that he does let me get on with it – I feel lucky that he trusts me to hold the fort so to speak, and drive the business further.”
The weight of that history isn’t lost on her. “The pressure is on me not to mess up. I’d love my children to take it over, and their children. To still be here in another 100 years’ time.” It’s a lot. But it’s also clearly what drives her.
That feeling of family runs through the whole business, not just the Nicholson name. “When you come and work for us, you become one of the Nicholsons. We will always look after you, but equally we will ask a lot from you. We will never, ever compromise on quality. We will never compromise on customer service.” Whether someone walks in for 1 sausage or 100, they get the same warmth, the same attention, the same care. That’s just how it works here.
IT ACTUALLY STARTS AT THE SOIL
You might think the story of a great steak begins with the butcher’s knife. At Nicholson’s, it starts considerably earlier than that. “If you really want to look into the details, it actually starts at the soil,” says Kathryn. “What’s grown on the farm that the cattle are eating is going to have an effect on everything.“
Nicholson’s visits farms and hand-selects their meat, working only with farmers who share their ethos, people who let their animals graze on quality pasture for as long as possible, who go above and beyond on welfare, and who are increasingly focused on sustainability. Most of the farms they work with are within 36 miles of the shop. One beef farmer they work with currently feeds his cattle nothing that hasn’t been grown on his own farm.
“That costs more,” Kathryn says plainly. “Every extra day that cow is alive, it’s costing that farmer money to feed it, to house it, to look after it. But what that time does is allow the cattle to develop flavour, to develop fat marbling. Patience is the word.“
Most of Nicholson’s cattle are Limousin or a Limousin cross, perhaps with Aberdeen Angus or Charolais, chosen specifically for their fat coverage and size. Nothing too big, nothing too small. “Fat is where the flavour comes,” she says. And at Nicholson’s, flavour is non-negotiable.
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE STEAK
The dry-ageing fridge is a carefully controlled environment – dehumidifiers running, fans circulating, air flowing freely around every cut – managed day-to-day by butcher Kev, complete with tags and spreadsheets to track exactly what’s in there and when it’s ready.
“It’s not just a case of throwing those sirloins in the fridge and hoping for the best,” says Kathryn. “There’s a lot of science behind it.“
They dry age on the bone, which intensifies the flavour even further, and they only do it with cuts that genuinely benefit from the process. If a sirloin isn’t ready, it isn’t ready, and they’ll tell you so.
“We would prefer to say we don’t have any sirloin available than to rush it. A lot of large-scale ageing happens in vacuum-packed bags; no moisture is lost. For us, we lose a lot of moisture, but I feel we can stand proud and say our steaks are really good because we’ve put so much work behind making them the best they can be.“
THE AWARD WINNERS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
Nicholson’s has the kind of trophy cabinet that takes years to fill and it keeps growing. Recognised nationally and internationally, including a highly recommended nod from Gourmet Britain’s Best of British Food, the accolades are a reflection of a team that simply refuses to cut corners. Their sausages, made with locally sourced pork, proper seasoning, and a real bite to the meat, are perennial award winners.
The steak and ale pie – slow-cooked steak in locally brewed ale – has won countless accolades. And the chicken kiev, stuffed with house-made garlic butter and proper butter (no margarine, ever), has something of a cult following. “We cannot make enough of those,” Kathryn admits.
Some of the recipes behind these have been in the family for generations; the pease pudding is made to exactly the same recipe Kathryn’s grandfather used. Others have been refined over time, particularly as the industry has moved away from the additive-laden products of the 80s and 90s toward cleaner, more honest ingredients. The direction of travel is clear: fewer shortcuts, better everything.
THE FIRST WOMAN TO CHAIR THE Q GUILD
Nicholson’s has been a member of the Q Guild of Butchers since the 1960s, one of the first shops in the country to join, and recently, Kathryn made history as the first woman ever to chair it. She’s got eight months left in the role, and she’s clearly proud of what the Guild represents: a nationwide network of butchers who are serious about quality, who swap recipes and ideas, who ring each other up when they’ve got a surplus or a quiet week.
“It can be really lonely, running an independent business,” she says. “The Q Guild gives you a support network of people who want to be the best. That’s really special.“
She’s just as passionate about changing the face of butchery itself. “I want to make it as attractive to as many females as I can. It’s not a scary place full of grumpy old men; it’s actually the funnest place to work. It’s definitely not glamorous, but it’s bloody brilliant, and you’ll get such a reward for it.”
It’s the kind of conviction that comes from someone who genuinely loves what they do. Kathryn is currently completing a degree in sustainable butchery, and she’s been in food science long enough to bring real rigour to the way Nicholson’s operates. But ask her for her best piece of business advice, and it’s refreshingly relatable. “It’s okay to not have all the answers. That’s why we have a whole team. If I don’t know something, I can go and find out. That was a massive lightbulb moment for me.
HIGH LIFE NORTH X NICHOLSON’S BUTCHERS – SUMMER BBQ LUST LIST
Nicholsons Butchers, 140 Park View, Whitley Bay NE26 3QN
Rachael Ellis
Head of Content
After gaining a first in her BA Media and Journalism degree at Northumbria University, Rachael worked at Newcastle’s leading regional newspaper with her stories being picked up in national and global newspapers. She spent two very successful years giving a voice to those communities across the North East who otherwise…
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