Miami Favorite Babe’s Meat & Counter Expands After 8 Years

I first met Melanie Schoendorfer in the summer of 2012, when she competed in the hot dog-eating competition at my event, the Hot Dog Fest. At the time, my Burger Beast blog was barely four years old. Not long after, she and her husband, Jason, were setting up a tent at the Pinecrest Farmers Market, selling sausages and sandwiches under the name Babe Froman Fine Sausages. I watched those early days up close, years before the operation grew into the Palmetto Bay butcher shop and sandwich destination now known as Babe’s Meat & Counter.

For years, Babe’s Meat & Counter has been one of Miami’s most reliable stops for serious sandwiches and house-butchered meats. It’s the butcher shop where the croquetas make you crave another, the minute you bite into them. The bacon is made in-house, and the cheeseburger has become a benchmark for how seriously Miami should take its hamburgers. It even won New Times‘ Best Burger in 2025.

Now, eight years after opening their Palmetto Bay shop, Jason and Melanie Schoendorfer have expanded. For Babe’s, the moment feels less like a reinvention and more like the continuation of a story that started under a farmers’ market tent.

From Farmers Market Hustle to Butcher Shop

The Schoendorfers’ journey began in 2013 at the Pinecrest Gardens Farmers Market, where they sold sausages and sandwiches under the name Babe Froman Fine Sausages.

At the time, neither Jason nor Melanie had formal butchery training. What they did have was curiosity and the stubborn urge to make the kind of meats they couldn’t find in Miami.

Melanie’s background offered a head start. She grew up in Canada in an Italian family where making meat products from scratch was normal. Her grandparents prepared prosciutto, sausages, pepperettes, and other cured meats at home. Later, she spent 11 years working at Joanna’s Marketplace, the South Miami gourmet grocery known for its approach to food.

Jason’s path was less culinary. He studied audio engineering and later spent more than a decade working in his family’s unusual business, a pet cemetery and crematory. The two met at Starbucks, where Jason worked while attending school, while Melanie worked at the Canada Pavilion at EPCOT. They bonded over their shared love of sausage.

Once the couple moved to Miami, they discovered the problem: the sausages they wanted didn’t really exist here. Instead of settling, they started experimenting. First came sausages and bacon. Then simple sandwiches built around those meats. The Pinecrest market became their testing ground.

A Moment in Miami’s Butcher Revival

Babe’s arrived during a moment when Miami’s food culture was starting to rediscover something older cities had long embraced: the neighborhood butcher shop.

Around the same time, places like Proper Sausages in Miami Shores and Miami Smokers in Little Havana were proving that a butcher counter paired with serious sandwiches could work here.

Those shops helped pioneer the idea that Miami diners would line up not just for restaurant food but for carefully sourced meat, house-made charcuterie, and sandwiches built around those ingredients.

The Schoendorfers were part of that same movement, though their path came through the farmers’ market circuit rather than through culinary pedigrees. In 2018, they made the leap into a brick-and-mortar shop.

What Babe’s Does Best

Today, Babe’s functions as both a butcher shop and a sandwich counter, with the two sides feeding each other.

Inside the refrigerated case are premium cuts, house-made sausages, artisanal bacon, and cured meats. In the kitchen, those same ingredients become sandwiches, burgers, and sides that have helped build Babe’s reputation.

The “Babe’s Burger,” made from a blend of prime and Wagyu beef, has repeatedly been recognized as one of Miami’s best burgers. The Cuban sandwich is another standout, featuring house-smoked ham and roasted pork.

Melanie’s Canadian roots show up on the menu as well. Babe’s is one of the few places in Miami that serve Montreal-style smoked meats and authentic poutine topped with real cheese curds.

And then there are the croquetas, which regularly disappear as quickly as they hit the counter.

The Team That Got Them Here

Growth like this rarely happens with just two people. Over time, the Schoendorfers have assembled a team that now seems perfectly positioned for Babe’s next chapter.

Mike Leon (@gonzomike440) runs the kitchen. His approach leans creative without losing sight of what makes Babe’s work: solid meat, simple ideas, and good execution. Katherine Alvarez (@naansolo) is the creator of all baked goods, including their addictive sausage rolls and a cinnamon roll bread pudding that is as good an excuse as any to not share with friends.

Out front, Eric Cordo helps manage the flow of customers moving between the butcher counter and the sandwich orders.

And then there’s Simone. Jason and Melanie’s daughter has grown up in the business, watching Babe’s evolve from a farmers market operation into a neighborhood institution.

The Expansion

The expansion will bring about 40 seats to Babe’s, something the shop has never really had. Until now, most customers grabbed sandwiches to go or ate quickly at the counter. The additional seating will finally allow people to sit down and enjoy what they ordered rather than eating in the car on the drive home.

The project will also expand the butcher counter and create room for more local products.

For the Schoendorfers, the butcher side of the operation remains the core of everything.

The sandwiches and burgers might grab the headlines, but they’re built on the work happening behind the glass case: curing, smoking, grinding, and breaking down meat the old-fashioned way.