Dubbo couple Nathan and Julieanne Gunter open new butcher shop Darling Street Meat House

Husband and wife team Nathan and Julieanne Gunter opened their new butcher shop Darling Street Meat House just last week and it's already proving popular.

"The response has been great from the community so far. People have come out in droves to check it out - people that I've known for years and who've seen me in different butcher shops around town," said Mr Gunter - who has been a butcher since 1997.

"I'm stoked that the store's open. It took a lot of hard work and a lot of building as well as organising with all the agencies to get it going. So it's great."

The lead up to opening day was especially "stressful", Mr Gunter says, because the timing of the opening was just after Meatstock - Australia's biggest meat and barbecue festival.

"I agreed to go down to Meatstock and I was going to pull out of it to stay here and focus on the shop but the butcher boys down there told me to stay in the event," he said.

"I'm glad I went. It was great fun. I picked up a lot of knowledge from other butchers about how things are done in Sydney, that they aren't done this way."

Held in Sydney from May 5-7 the Butcher Wars event at Meatstock saw Mr Gunter competing against 24 other butchers from across the state. Each heat was held live on stage in front of a packed out audience.

"There were four of us live on stage and we had 30 minutes to bust up half a lamb and half a saddle of pork and display it," Mr Gunter explained.

"You had to do the best creation you could in the fastest time - we were judged on speed, technique, presentation and creativity.

"You're on stage, the lights are on you, you're working hard, you've got a guy putting a microphone in your face and five judges walking around watching you do every cut. And a crowd of 100 people watching you."

As Meatstock wrapped up on the Sunday, Mr Gunter headed back to Dubbo to get Darling Street Meat House - located at 273 Darling Street - open the very next day.

He said much of the meat stocked at his shop comes from local producers from in and around Dubbo. The pork he sells comes from local pigs, reared just 20 minutes up the road and his chicken comes from a poultry farm just outside of Wellington.

As well as all the staples you'd expect from a local butcher shop, Darling Street Meat House stocks farm fresh eggs, locally baked bread and a range of spices, local honeys and local jams.

Some of the most popular products so far have been Mr Gunter's lemon and parsley chicken schnitzels and his Tasmanian pepper roast beef.

"It's great to be able to be my own boss and not have to worry about someone looking over my shoulder and making sure I'm doing everything right for them," he said.

"Because I know I'm doing things right now, because I'm doing them right for me. So there's no stress, I just take it easy and get the job done perfectly."

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