Central Arkansas butcher Randy Radley will put his knowledge and skills to the test against three other professional butchers Wednesday on History Channel’s The Butcher.
The show, which is in its first season, is an “extreme, high-stakes competition where best-in-class butchers battle in a showdown designed to put their knowledge, strategy and technique to the ultimate test,” according to the show’s website.
Radley, who has been a butcher for around 15 years, said that he got a phone call in November and almost didn’t answer it when he saw that it was from California. “You think, ‘Who’s calling me from Hollywood?’” Radley said.
When the person on the other end of the line said they were a casting agent for the History Channel, Radley said he immediately thought that it was a hoax. The agent explained to Radley that the show was looking for butchers all over the country who were the most highly recommended in their area. The agent had started looking in Little Rock, and Radley’s name came up multiple times.
Just hearing that he was so highly recommended, Radley said, was “super humbling.”
After being convinced that it wasn’t a hoax, Radley said that he wasn’t sure about participating. Radley credited his wife, Nikki, with convincing him to accept the invitation.
He flew to California in February to appear on the show.
While he said that he isn’t allowed to say too much about what happened while he was on the program, he did say that he thinks his performance will make Arkansas proud.
Radley owns Griffith’s Custom Butchering at 173 Keanard Lane in Hot Springs, where he started out as a seasonal employee in the mid-2000s. At the time, he was dating Nikki, the daughter of Tim Griffith, the former owner of the butcher shop.
Radley asked Griffith to teach him how to be a butcher. The job, Radley said, is difficult and dangerous. A week into working on deer, Radley said that he managed to flip a knife into his thigh. Griffith drove Radley to a doctor and explained to him how dangerous the injury could have been. Radley said that after that incident, Griffith hammered the dangers of the profession into him.
In 2016, Radley bought the business from his father-in-law.