Say It With Meat
Shopping for carnivorous loved ones this holiday season? We suggest a visit to the Oberto Factory Outlet, a store clogged with a staggering array of discount meat snacks.
The Oberto Sausage Company is the nation’s largest jerky concern, and its Rainier Avenue outlet seems to carry every possible variety: beef, pork and turkey, cured and seasoned in myriad flavors (original, spicy, teriyaki, hickory, BBQ, taco, mesquite, etc.), and packed in bags, cans, and jars of all sizes. Of course, there’s big savings in bulk buying, for instance, $12.99 gets you a “Five-Pound Turkey Bag.” Various “Ends & Pieces” of other products are sold in similarly large plastic bags, many marked “CLOSE TO DATE” and “PAST BEST BY DATE.”
Though Oberto began making jerky in the ‘60s, the family-owned business began much earlier. Italian immigrant Constantino Oberto set up shop on Dearborn in 1918, and in 1953, his son Art moved the business to a larger plant at the current Rainier Avenue location. The company has since bought out a few other similar brands, and today Oberto operates three plants in the Seattle area, employing about 1,000, as well as a fourth plant in Albany, Oregon. Since 1975, Oberto has also sponsored its own “pepperoni-powered” hydroplane, a perennial Seafair also-ran.
Even if you’re not in the market for gifts, the outlet also has a full-service deli, offering frankfurters, kielbasa, polish sausage and hot links. Have lunch in the Hydro Room, with its folding chairs, checkered vinyl tablecloths, hydro memorabilia and boombox playing “continuous soft favorites.” There’s also a bunch of tie-in merchandise on display: T-shirts, inflatable hydro toys, and mini R/C hydros (we can’t get ours to work, though it looks cool in the bathtub). And there’s plenty of other foodstuffs to take home: dinner sausages, salami, kippered beef and the ubiquitous Oberto Cocktail Pep. These pepperoni sticks range from mere bite-size stubs to a six-foot rope – it's like eating a meat bullwhip (not to be done in one sitting).
We dig most of what we’ve consumed, but one gnawable to avoid is the truly awful lo-carb jerky, Oberto Edge. Otherwise, if you buy just one item, Seattlest recommends the $90 gift basket, guaranteed to turn even the dullest holiday party into a total sausage fest.
