Meat Cleaver - Wild Game & Beef Processor - Denver, Colorado

Timothy V.

Dropped off 1 bull elk mid-Nov to get processed. I ordered all steaks, ground, and 20 lbs of Cased sausage (10 Breakfast / 10 German) - like I have ordered in past years.

After I picked up my order, the steak and ground was fine but I received no cased sausage like I had ordered (and Jeff the owner took my initial order in person in the office and we talked about cased sausage flavors on the grill for 10 min.). Upon asking why I didn’t get cased sausage, the response was they made a business decision this year that they are no longer doing cased sausage as a company (never mentioning this to customers or on the order sheet - and others have said this on their reviews as well).

The owner offered to cure my order by having me bring all my uncased sausage back to be cased. After a month of hearing nothing, I finally received ‘your order is ready’ and I went to pickup my cased order. I learned they had mixed, in one batch, both my breakfast sausage with German sausage and cased them together. 100% of the cased sausage was not edible (after trying at home) and not even good enough to donate. It smelled awful and wouldn’t even feed to my dog. I brought back all the sausage and lost ~20 lbs from my Elk.

The owner did fully refund my order but I lost a quarter of my entire elk order that can’t be replaced now.

After harvesting an elk and packing it on your back 5+ miles for this to happen is unacceptable.

From start to finish I felt like I was deceived by the owner / office manager / staff. I spent 6 trips driving back and forth to their shop to give them the opportunity to fix the mistakes.

I highly recommend you take your animal and get it processed somewhere else even if it’s a further drive for you!

Jason F.

Dropped off my elk in the beginning of November. Took awhile to get it processed and returned. My steaks taste good, but the ground is inedible. I took the time to process my elk in the field properly and this is not the product I should have received. As others have mentioned, the ground meat smells spoiled and rotten, wouldn’t even feed this to the dog. Beyond frustrating, hard work and money wasted! Do yourself a favor and go elsewhere…

pete C.

Extremely Disappointed – Bad Meat, Poor Service
We’ve been using Meat Cleaver for over 17 years without issue, but after this experience, we’ll never be back. We took in a cow elk and a buck for processing and were told it would take five weeks. Two weeks in, we called to check on the status, questioning why the process was taking so long. When we finally picked up our meat, we were given less than 60 lbs of elk—only after complaining did they suddenly “find” more to give us.

The real issue, however, was the quality of the meat. We immediately noticed a slimy texture and foul smell when we defrosted it. We checked multiple cuts from both the elk and deer, and every single piece was bad. We contacted Meat Cleaver, and while they admitted to believing us, their solution was to offer us leftover meat from the season. Later, we found out through hunting social media that we weren’t the only ones with this problem—many hunters reported spoiled meat, and it was shared that their freezers had broken down.

If they knew their freezers had failed, why would they still distribute bad meat? That’s beyond unacceptable—it’s dangerous. My son (who had an out-of-state tag) and I put in a massive amount of time, effort, and money into this hunt, only for it to be ruined by careless handling. The worst part is that my family could have gotten seriously sick from consuming spoiled meat.

It’s incredibly disappointing to see a once-trusted business decline like this.. If you value your hard-earned game and your health, take your business elsewhere.

Ryder R.

So just an update meat cleaver tried rectifying them losing of our harvest (3 cow elk) by offering 120 lbs. they could give me for free. Yes, you read right that's it 120 lbs.! of ground for 3 elk. Well we just fried up the first 2 lbs. of ground and it was very bitter tasting and frankly not near edible. What an absolute waste! If you want to know what getting robbed of your hard work feels like Meat Cleaver is the place to go.

Justin P.

We hope this review helps others not waste their hard earned wild game and money. Drop off was relatively smooth but disorganized, Meat Cleaver took 6 weeks to process our elk. At pickup the packaged meat was not frozen, it seems that their freezer was not operating properly. After paying the invoice in full, the meat was transported back home to be placed in the deep freeze.

Recently we were excited to enjoy some of the hard earned elk but quickly found the burger to have a foul spoiled smell, as if the meat had been handled improperly during those 6 weeks. This is beyond unacceptable and frankly this business should be inspected and shutdown by the health department before someone gets sick. Take your hard earned wild game products to another butcher or even better learn how to process game yourself.

Jonathan E.

Business is under new ownership and it seems their care for hard earned meat and quality of services is not the same as prior ownership. My buddy brought a deer to them for processing. After being left in the dark and several phone calls, It took almost 2 months to hear anything back from them. When he finally picked up the meat it was not frozen. All of the meat is spoiled. Looking at recent reviews, It’s incredibly frustrating that so many people have had similar experiences this season. Be extremely cautious if you decide to take your wild game here for processing. If you are picking up meat from them I suggest opening a package and smelling/inspecting it thoroughly before you leave.

Jackson B.

The initial drop off and meeting with the office manager was great. The rest of my experience was not good at best. My cousin and I dropped off 1 bull elk and 1 mule deer buck. It took weeks of me calling them to get a response about when my order would be ready and ship. I was not in a rush to get my order I just didn’t appreciate being left in the dark for nearly 3 weeks with my calls not returned.

The ground meat is not labelled at all and the sausage is only labelled with the type not the animal/order number. Both the ground meat and the sausage were poorly packaged and I have opened multiple packages that taste spoiled/off. I normally cannot wait to eat my wild game meat but unfortunately I chose to
get my game processed at Meat Cleaver and each bag I open there is a 50/50 chance that it will not taste good. Some of the meat tastes good some of it does not. Just very disappointed.

I am very disappointed and do not recommend bringing your hard earned animal here.

Check the reviews. The good reviews are from years ago. Not sure what changed at this processor, but they have received numerous bad, 1 star reviews from their work this year.

Tim R.

The people were very friendly, and drop off was very efficient. The packaging/vacuum seal seems well done and quality. Their pricing is very competitive, which is why I tried them this year instead of going to the processor I have been using the past few years. The only reason I rated The Meat Cleaver a 3 star is because the ground elk burger is unlabeled and the 30 lbs of elk sausage I had made came back in ground form. All of the pictures on the website show nicely cased sausages. I have not tried the sausage yet, and I am confident it will be good. It is just much more inconvenient to have to make patties out of it. Had I known, I would not have ordered 30+lbs of sausage. I went back to the website to see if this was my mistake, but could not find any indication of the sausage being ground rather than cased. Again, all in all it was a good experience and the team at Meat Cleaver are very nice. I was just a little bit disappointed with the sausage.