Baron's Quality Meats & Seafood, a Bay Area family-owned butcher shop – SFGATE

It’s been a winding path for David Samiljan to get to where he is today. Not many butchers used to be vegans, and even fewer started out in the circus.“I was on what they call the ring crew. … Other circuses call them the prop crew,” Samiljan told SFGATE over the phone. “I was more or less a stagehand.” However, the circus life was not something that he ever aspired to do. Then again, neither was becoming a butcher. Raised in Staten Island, New York, the self-proclaimed “science fiction nerd” wanted to experience the world after growing up in suburbia. “My biggest claim to fame is I grew up near Willowbrook Park, which was right next to Willowbrook State development mental institution,” he joked. David Samiljan and Alex Olson prep meat at Baron’s Quality Meats & Seafood inside Alameda Marketplace in Alameda, Calif., Nov. 29, 2022.Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE Willowbrook State School’s unfortunate claim to infamy was being the subject of young Geraldo Rivera’s most explosive expose. In 1972, it was revealed that the institution was badly mistreating people. Public outcry eventually led to the closure of the state-run facility, albeit 15 years later in 1987. This is a carousel. Use Next
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