I LOVE THAT ROAD TO GALISTEO. With the overwhelming sky, the impossibly dominating land, I feel I’m traveling not just to a place, but to another dimension.
Just east of Galisteo, I was to meet Tony Beck of Beck and Bulow. But the address led me to the gate of the New Mexico Camp for Girls. I deduced I had come to the wrong place, but it turned out to be the former owner and they hadn’t had time to change the sign yet.
So I followed a meandering road and ended up at a fantastic barn overlooking the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. We faced Lamy Station.
Tony showed up late. He was abrupt at first, then became this unreconstructed bro, saying outrageous things which could easily get a rise out of someone. The conversation meandered from a mystical account of the buffalo and his incongruous love of meat to sweat lodges and with his crazy lucky way of describing his radical business success.
He seemed irritated when I told him I had not yet tasted his full line of products. As he talked, I kept thinking I had met him before. Suddenly, I remembered I had indeed encountered him at the farmer’s market. I was considering buying some buffalo meat, and when I hesitated because of the price, he asked if I valued the well-being of my family. I did, I remember saying yes, but no, I wasn’t buying any buffalo that day. Yet I was impressed by the bravado of such a question. And now I found myself liking him and thinking it would be fun to go to his legendary parties.
After the interview, I bought a lot of stuff at the store on Cerrillos. I neither asked for nor was offered a discount. I liked that. I bought buffalo liver at his direction. As he instructed, I cut it frozen into small pieces and ate it. And I am an absolute convert. —OL
Why did you start Beck & Bulow?
In 2018, I moved to Santa Fe and had a friend that was a food broker. I kept saying to Jean Paul Bulow, my business partner, Find me some high-quality bison, buffalo. I could buy it from Costco or Smith’s, but they add beef.
JP finally called me back: Tony, this guy called. He’s retiring. He wants to get rid of his bison business.
So we went to meet him. This guy’s like 76, from South Dakota, and he’s like, My kids aren’t interested in this. He was selling a little bit at the farmer’s market. At the time, I was done with working in real estate and cryptocurrency. I was like, I can’t do it anymore. My soul, I can’t do it. So I didn’t really have an income. This buffalo opportunity came and I just went for it.
Turned out it was on my birthday. We made a deal – I don’t even know why I did it. I was like, there’s no conceivable way I’m ever going to make a return on this. I think I paid like $20,000. We picked up the meat. I was driving this old X5 at the time. We put a trailer on it, stopped at a brewery in Albuquerque. I made the first sale for bison short ribs. They put it on their brewery menu.
Then we got into the Santa Fe Farmer’s Market. We learned to sell meat well, very quickly. There were thousands of people that came. The next thing I know, there’s lines of people waiting for us.
Then we would start knocking on doors to the restaurants. It’s just work. You’re putting your own money in. Some part of your mind is saying, this is just crazy. I ruined my life is what I initially thought.
But I believed in the buffalo. I still do. I believe in the bison, because in the last 20 years of my life, at least once, twice, three times a year with a ceremonial group in South Dakota. I was Sundancing and still am, doing sweats and vision quests with a traditional family. The bison was the cornerstone. Even in their version of God, Wakan Tanka, Tanka is the bison. So you can’t really have one without the other. I’d fallen in love with the bison but didn’t really know it.
What drew you to the ceremonial group?
I guess I was just kind of a bad kid, is what I felt like. I’m the only person in my family that dropped out of college, barely made it through high school. I was in Detroit at the time and started doing sweat lodges. This guy was a Mexican coyote who had been bringing people across the border. He was traveling all around the world doing these ceremonies. He brought me up to South Dakota.
I’ve traveled quite a bit, and the first time I ever had culture shock was in South Dakota. The drums, the piercings, the flesh offerings, the cedar, I fell in love with it. I found something that just made me feel like myself. I don’t know how to quantify it. I feel like, is there really a difference if you meet yourself or what people call God? That’s what happened to me. I still go.
Did people think you were crazy?
I think you’re on the right track if some people think you’re crazy, at least at first. Of course. The first thing is your family, right? They think you’re nuts. Just some black sheep. But now I’m more successful than all of them combined. I think there’s got to be some kind of craziness. And then the wife thinks you’re crazy, but then she goes along with it. I think that explains a lot of male behavior – men do things to show off to their wife or daughter.
So the bison was a deeply meaningful creature to you?
Yeah, because I was eating beef, and I noticed if I would eat beef – I’m not a violent person, but I think I’m capable of violence — I would start having violent impressions before bed. Over time, I just stopped eating beef and just eat the bison now. I went bison and didn’t go back.
The whole tragedy of what we did to the herds, 40 million bison gone to near extinction. How does that figure into your thinking?
I don’t really think about the negativity of it so much. They say the Blackfoot, when there were only about 100 left, smuggled them up through the Rockies into Canada. That’s why the bison are approximately one quarter smaller than they used to be, because they had a small genetic pool. But who am I to say what’s right or wrong or good and bad? We’re sitting here talking today probably largely because of those ancestors that did that.
So you’re selling meat at a farmer’s market. Then what happened?
Then we’re going after restaurants too, knocking on doors. We were pretty aggressive at first because we had to be. I didn’t really have income coming in. I had a buffer in the bank account, but it was dwindling. Around this time, my business partner quit his job and went full-on on this. But I’m still putting money in. We had to sell to eat. I have a wife and kids.
When you knocked on those doors, what was your argument?
Well, it’s more expensive than beef, typically. But it just tastes better, and there were no cows here until the Europeans brought them. It was all bison. And it’s integral for the environment and the landscape – their hoofs create little micro-ecosystems for water and their fur carries seeds. There used to be so many bison that it would rumble like earthquakes.
It’s also leaner than beef. It doesn’t have the amount of fat that beef has. It’s very high in protein. And for me, it gives me better energy.
When we first started selling, the only thing people had heard of in Santa Fe were bison burgers. Harry’s Roadhouse had one, Cowgirl too. But we started selling the entire animal, from tongue to tail. Literally the tongue and oxtail, briskets. We put the steaks on the map. It stands in the same category as the top wagyu — the best quality Japanese tenderloin. It’s an amazing cut.
How many pounds of meat do you get from one animal?
From a two-year-old, you get about 600 pounds of meat. So like 1,200-1,400 pounds total with the carcass, the hide, the bones, the blood.
Lakota say that the bison taught them family structure. They have amazing family structure. For instance, you could have multiple dads — one dad you talk to about hunting, another about something else. So the Lakota also have an extensive adopted family. Someone adopts you as their son, so you have multiple dads. Back in the day, kids could just go to their other dad’s home for the night. There was zero sexual violence. They were just with their other family.
You just started selling tongue to tail?
The tongue is traditional. There was a ceremony or prayer, but people that don’t speak well could eat the tongue and it makes them speak well.
The liver is a super tonic. You take the liver when it’s frozen and raw, let it sit for 10-20 minutes, cut it into little cubes, put it in a Tupperware container. In the morning with your coffee, you take two or three or four cubes and just swallow them. Don’t even chew them.
It has an unidentified anti-fatigue factor. Makes your hair grow, your skin glow, makes you able to work like crazy, increases your libido through the roof. And if you drink alcohol, you can’t get drunk and don’t get hungover. I think your liver gets superhuman capacity.
Can you taste the difference between an animal that’s in a feed lot and an animal that’s pasture-raised?
100%. I’ve eaten at so many restaurants with this business, three Michelin stars all over the world. Now when I go to a restaurant, I can taste the difference, especially in chicken. It almost tastes like a chemical. It’s subtle, but it’s there. During COVID, the meat industry consolidated into three players that own 85-90% of the market. Now, if you buy beef, your ground beef could be partially from Vietnam, from Brazil, from Mexico. Who wants to live in a world where three companies control all your meat supply or they’re growing meat in labs? I want to be around people that are wild and free and a life that’s wild and free.
The retail pivot took you to where you are now?
We went from a $20,000 loan to doing about $10 million this year. I don’t think there’s anyone that can outwork us. Our culture is just relentless. We’ll work seven days a week, 16 hours a day. When we got the shop during COVID, we did grassroots marketing. We flyered every car. We knocked on doors. We had people in the median with signs saying to go to our shop. Relentless.
So you have an extraordinarily hardworking staff?
Yeah, but that culture has to be instilled. We all do the sweats too. So there was more of a drive to make whatever needed to happen, happen.
So there was a spiritual, practical, personal foundation?
Yeah, definitely. It’s never been about selling meat, ever.
It’s about?
Just living an exemplary life and striving for mastery. Like if you were to die right now, would you be satisfied with yourself? I’m living to the fullest. Things could always be better, and I’m never satisfied either. I’ve had both cash and failure, and cash beats the shit out of failure.
What about the freedom of running your own business?
I wouldn’t do it any other way. My best work comes when you just show up. The day just sort of develops. We call it getting in flow state. The best ideas come in flow state.
People say, Do you have a business plan? No, we haven’t had a business plan. It just sort of developed.
I’ve been a vegan, I’ve done the raw food. My dad was a vegetarian when I was 13. I’m a big advocate that meat is the number one health food. You have all the amino acids. I feel like it gives a passion or tenacity that nothing else will. The culture has told us that meat is bad, especially red meat. I’d say that’s the exact opposite of what I believe. There’s a lot of science that backs that up.
Do you think people intuitively understand that non-cage food is healthier?
I’ll tell you what, our business has never been about health. I tried the health angle at the farmer’s market, which I 100% believe in. But it’s always been about taste. The taste is superior. Our brand is like rustic elegance — let the meat stand on its own. I grew up in a family that didn’t cook steaks. We just did ground beef and chicken breast. There’s nothing better than a steak.
A lot of these new studies are saying that male testosterone levels have been in decline since the 70s. Cholesterol is a precursor to testosterone. They’ve been saying, Watch your cholesterol, but it’s in the fats too. My mom thought fat was the enemy.
You’re saying they lied to us?
They did fucking lie to us. It was the carbs and the sugar that were the enemy, and the fats were actually extremely good for you.
Let’s talk about the mythology of it. We love cowboys, that freedom, not being told what to do. Is this a cowboy mentality?
You want to live life on your own terms. If you’re gonna fail, you fail because of your own shortcomings. You want to be outside. I’d much rather be outside, working with my hands.
You have a new ranch in Lamy. What’s the vision for it?
It started a bit altruistically. A lot of our staff get paid well, and they were trying to get mortgages. In Santa Fe, you’re 23 years old trying to get a mortgage for half a million dollars. The housing situation is just dismal.
I bought this ranch for employee housing, like for management, and also to put our warehouse here. We had a warehouse near Pete’s Place, near the homeless shelter. Open drug use, smoking fentanyl. My wife was driving my kids at 12 o’clock in the afternoon, and there were sexual acts going on in public. We had heroin needles out front of our warehouse. I was just like, We got to get the hell out of here.
Since we bought this place, it’s been a ton of work, a ton of money. But it’s beautiful. I think it’s super beautiful here.
Here’s my vision. Close to the ranch is the old Amtrak station, which is historic. It used to be the only station from here to LA. Our place used to be the girls’ ranch.
This area is why people come to New Mexico. You’ve got the mountains, the stars at night are amazing. The mountain next to the ranch is where they were mining for the Loretto church. They got the quarry from here.
So I’d like this property to be a gem of Santa Fe. It’s going to be super responsible with water, educational. And events. People love our events. Our Christmas parties change people. It’s good parties with caviar. Our food is amazing, our own style. Rustic elegance.
The parties are a way that people feel the culture. They feel something about us that they want to be a part of. They want to be a part of the community. Maybe there’s a little too much alcohol, but I think you’d have a good time.
It seems like making people happy makes you happy?
Well, I am in the food business.
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NEW MEXICO GIRLS RANCH BY JONATHAN TERCERO, COURTESY ROBYN TYRA; THE VIEW TO LAMY STATION, AND TONY, PHOTOS SFM
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