In 1993, Kelly Fanda and his wife Rhonda Hitchings would head to the Crossroads Market to buy a goat about once a month or so. On one visit, things went a little differently and it started them on a new career path. “We went there one day to pick up our goat and the proprietor's boyfriend had left,” says Rhonda. “She didn’t know how to cut meat so she asked us to try it for the weekend. We did and the rest is history.”
Being a butcher wasn’t foreign to Kelly, as he had grown up on a farm in India and had butchered goats since he was seven or eight years old. The couple took over the operation and Chinook Edge Lamb & Goat was born, later changed to Kelly’s Meats.
Since Crossroads Market is only open on the weekends, Kelly’s Meats became a part-time job for Kelly and Rhonda. “It was just the weekend so we had our other jobs as well,” says Rhonda. She explains that they both still enjoy the market atmosphere at Crossroads. “The thing we like about it is with it only being three days a week – Friday, Saturday, Sunday – we know there's going to be people there.”
