Raddell’s family sausage business in Cleveland dates back nearly a century.
Ludwig Raddell, who was born in Slovenia, immigrated to the United States with his parents in the early 1900s. After stints mining lead in Colorado and serving in the Marines, he joined Cleveland’s flourishing Slovenian community. In 1927, he opened a small grocery store on Waterloo Road in Collinwood, where the family sold foods made from traditional recipes.
Today, Raddell’s is run by the family’s fourth generation — brothers Jacob, Zachary, Christian and Timothy Raddell.
Slovenian sausage remains its specialty, but the family’s shop has become a sort of United Nations of sausage, making specialties in the Hungarian and Polish styles as well as Andouille and smokies. The reputation of its links stretch far beyond the neighborhood where the business began.
What’s your earliest memory of the shop?
For Jay Raddell, it was sweeping the floor.
He started coming to the shop after school and on weekends when he was about 10 years old, sweeping and washing dishes.
“I was sweeping floors and a family friend came in and he goes, he goes, ‘Hey how much is your dad paying you?’
The answer was 25 cents an hour. “He told me I should ask for a raise.
“At the end of the day, my dad bumped me up to 50 cents and doubled my money,” Jay Raddell said. His brother Chris has a similar story. In his version, he was about 8 and had worked all day for his father. When they pulled in the driveway at home he said, “Wait, dad I worked all day, I worked real good, aren’t you gonna pay me? His father pulled out a quarter, a dime, a nickel, and a few pennies. He put the quarter back in his pockets and handed his son the rest. “Because he was a cheap Slovenian,” Chris Raddell said.
What does carrying on the family business mean to you?
Jay Raddell said that his family is fortunate to have kept the shop going as many of the butcher shops and sausage makers he remembers have disappeared.
The family’s history stretches through four generations of sausage makers and butchers. Ludwig’s son, William Sr., learned the trade at his father’s Waterloo store and later went into the meat business himself. William’s son Thomas expanded the business to its current East 152nd Street location in 1979. It was 2010, Thomas’ four sons took over.
Now a fifth generation is growing up around the shop: The current owners’ sons help on weekends.
What are you known for? What makes it different?
Raddell’s remains primarily a Slovenian sausage shop, even though the family now makes sausages from several culinary traditions.
The family’s traditional Slovenian sausage is made from coarsely ground pork shoulder seasoned simply with salt, pepper and garlic, then smoked for four to six hours.
How has the business changed for Raddell’s?
The Slovenian community remains an important part of Raddell’s customer base, including families that have been coming to the shop for generations.
For some, stopping at Raddell’s for sausage is part of family holiday traditions, particularly around Christmas and Easter.
But Raddell’s now reaches well beyond the Slovenian community and the neighborhood. The family has expanded into wholesale sales, supplying restaurants and grocery stores.
Raddell’s says a distributor partnership established in 2016 helped put its sausage in Heinen’s, SweetBerry Fresh Market and smaller Cleveland-area grocery stores. The business also ships directly to customers and says its online business has grown to about 4,000 repeat customers around the world.
What does an old Slovenian hog-slaughter tradition have to do with the sausage you make today?
Chris Raddell said in the Slovenian tradition, that hog slaughter was an event that could involve an entire family or even a village. Different parts of the animal were turned into sausages and other foods, including blood sausage, allowing families to preserve meat for winter.
Those traditions traveled with Slovenian immigrants to Cleveland. Ludwig Raddell came to the city in 1919 after hearing about its Slovenian community. He eventually opened his grocery in Collinwood, where Slovenian immigrants and their families were among the customers.
Asked whether he thinks about that history while making sausage today, though, his answer was less reflective:
“What’s on my mind is, like, health codes,” he joked.
Today, keeping the tradition alive also means thinking about temperature control, cleanliness, refrigeration and food safety.
What’s your best sausage joke?
From Jay Raddell:
What’s an Old World term for a vegetarian? A lousy hunter.
