Costello's Butcher and Deli, Christie and Darren Costello, Pensacola

Expect the unexpected. It happens often when I sit down to do an interview. In this case, it was with Christie and Darren Costello at their store in West Pensacola. Several people had mentioned that I should do a story on Costello’s Butcher and Deli, so I sought them out. The kicker was they have Wagyu Beef Hot Dogs. Interesting…

We met mid-week, mid-afternoon, and the place was packed. There was a lot of energy with many school kids among the shoppers. You immediately sense that you are in a special place. 

I cruised around the shop viewing coolers showcasing beautiful meats, cheeses, and a nice selection of wines. I had stopped by once before to introduce myself and purchased a flank steak stuffed with spinach and cheese to cook on the grill. It was unusual but tasty.

Soon after my arrival, I was ushered to a small office where Christie Costello sat. “We call this the closet,” she says. Darren steps in to introduce himself, then pops back out again to take care of something. I can tell he is a high-energy guy. “This is one of our employees’ last day and I need to tell him goodbye. We are going to miss him.”

I start by asking Christie about the Wagyu hotdogs just as Darren comes back. “Wagyu is good for the heart. It lowers your bad cholesterol and raises your good cholesterol,” he tells me. Christie chimes in, “It’s the only hotdog you can eat with a glass of wine and feel good about it.”

There is so much activity, my head is swimming. People are stopping by the closet to pass along information to Christie or to visit about honey and beeswax Faberge Eggs. We get into a brief discussion about the benefits of local raw honey that Shelby Johnson sells at Costello’s. 

Johnson’s family has been in Pensacola since the 1600s, and he has won blue ribbons at the Escambia County Fair for his beeswax art and his mead. He has his sights set on the State Fair in Tampa this year and expects to bring home the blue ribbon there as well. Shelby has owned Johnson Construction, one of the top Gulf Coast construction companies for over 25 years. 

We get back to how all this started. Christie met Darren at a Fractional Condo Ownership Investors event in Perdido Key in December 2006. As the meeting concluded, he said, “I’m going to buy you a beer.” Christie’s brother, who brought her to the meeting, came to get her to leave, and she said, “I’m having a beer with this gentleman.” They were married three months later in March 2007.

I’m taking all this in at warp speed. Darren, born in the South Bay area of California was a professional deep-sea diver for 20 years. “I was a remote-operated vehicle pilot (submersible), operations manager, and commercial diver based in Morgan City, Louisiana.” 

Christie was a comptroller from Minneapolis who had been coming to Pensacola all of her life. Her uncle was the retired captain of the USS Lexington based at the Naval Air Station.  He owned Rusty’s Fish Camp on Gulf Beach Road in Perdido. For years, they offered buckets of freshly caught fried mullet and sold the business just ten days before Hurricane Ivan hit. When I mentioned this to Linda, she said it was great, and she used to take her kids there.

Christie and Darren had previously owned a restaurant called Blues Cafe on Alcanz in Pensacola. Darren was still working as a professional diver. He was working on the Deepwater Horizon for Oceaneering International when the oil rig exploded in April 2010. Severely injured, he spent three years in rehab.

Christie says they tried retirement but it didn't work out well. They looked at each other one day and asked themselves, “What do we like to do?’ Christie liked wine and cheese. Darren comes from a big Italian family and his passion is food, especially meats. “He’s obsessed with meat, and we both like to cook,” says Christie. “We love food, wine, and traveling.”

“We wanted to reconnect with the community. That drove our decision to open the specialty food shop, and the plan was to give back to the community any way we could,” says Christie. What started in May 2019 as a little shop offering wine, cheese, and specialty meats grew as they were introduced to more and more food vendors with products they wanted to carry.

In March 2020, as the pandemic raged and the schools closed, Christie had a vision about what to do to help the community. She told Darren, “We are going to feed the kids and give it away for free.” She was concerned that, with the school closing, many kids in the community were going hungry. 

“This is a relatively poor area of Pensacola, and I figured we could provide a daily meal for $2.39 per meal.” Since the program began, Costello’s Butcher and Deli has provided 130,000 free meals to local children. On the day I visited, kids were lined up at the Deli counter with huge smiles. You could tell this was one big happy family.

Christie goes on to tell me that her mother and father were alcoholics, and she was raised by her grandparents. “My mom got sober and moved to Pensacola before she died of cancer a year later. That was the best year I ever had with my mom.” She has since established the Kimberly Tauer Foundation to honor her mom and continue serving the community in which they live.

“We didn’t know how well this little ‘ole store would do and how much it would help the people who live in this area. Now we know,” says Christie. Darren says, “If we made a million dollars, we would give $999,999 of it away.” They tell me the store is an open book. They track daily income on a whiteboard for anyone to see. Pretty much any profit is invested back into the community.

The store has grown and expanded through the four years it’s been open. So much so that a new building is being renovated nearby to run the free meal program. Costello’s provides 150 meals per weekday, up to 200 per day on weekends, and has a dedicated Down Syndrome adult employee and three volunteers to make the sandwiches. 

They know who is in need without asking questions, often selling meat at a discount to familiar locals. “We can tell who has had their water turned off, and we can quietly get that taken care of without them knowing,” Christie tells me.

A few years ago, a boutique Italian wine vendor, Casa di Monte, introduced them to some excellent wines from 100-year-old recipes for both red and white varietals. They chose two for Costello’s private label including a Chianti and a Pinot Grigio.  For each sale, $2.39 goes to provide a free meal for children in the area.

Costello’s strives to employ those who need a helping hand. “We are different,” says Christie. “I try to hire young folks in high school for their first job. If you can’t make it through me, then you aren’t going to make it through life.” She stresses responsibility and dependability. They also hire employees who have been previously incarcerated. 

“Customers are like family here. I feed all the kids so no one feels different. I don’t screen any of them.” Costello’s sponsors all the youth programs. “I would rather be alive and see the hard work pay off. You can’t take it with you. I enjoy reaping the rewards of giving back to the community.”

Costello’s Butcher and Deli sells a little bit of everything. They have a great selection of fine cheeses and specialty meats. They supply some of the food trucks and restaurants in Pensacola. They don’t sell anything frozen. “Freshness makes a huge difference,” says Christie. “We get lots of custom orders every day.”

Darren is the go-to source for exotic meats for customers and restaurants. Bison, elk, antelope, ostrich, rabbit, duck, frog legs, foie gras, and even camel are the hardest items to get for customers. He tells me the demand for oxtail has exploded. “We sell thousands of pounds of oxtail.”  Lower cuts of meats are growing in the U.S. and cattle farmers are producing fewer prime meats. They do carry the best cuts and grades of meat, including Wagyu beef. “I used to sell giraffe but it's a pain in the neck,” he jokes.

They are launching a food truck later this month. It will serve whatever is fresh that Darren grinds up, according to Christie. They are also planning to create a cooking school to help kids learn a trade, which will be taught by local chefs. Darren tells me they have seen positive changes in the neighborhood. “Crime is lower, and the neighborhood watches over us because we watch over them.”

“We are just doing what you should be doing. There’s no shame in helping people out. It’s pretty simple. He closes our discussion by pointing to a poster in the closet that reads, “Don’t be afraid, just have faith!”

As I was driving away from Costello’s I watched a kid I had just seen, skipping down the side of the road, happily carrying the meal bag he had just picked up. It warmed my heart.