By Gina Horan
Best Meats Kitchen Takes Over Former Toast Café Space
A familiar Fruitland Park breakfast spot has new owners and a direct connection to the butcher shop next door.
Chris and Leandra Gentry, owners of The Toast Café, have retired, and Best Meats Butcher Shop owners Rob and Suzanne Pond have taken over the restaurant space with Best Meats Kitchen, which has been serving customers since August.
“We know Leandra and Chris because we were their neighbors, and they were ready to be nearer to their grandkids and retire,” Rob says. “So we made them an offer, and it worked out for all of us.”
The Ponds took over Best Meats from its original Wildwood owners in 2024 and moved the butcher shop to its current Fruitland Park location in October 2025. Since then, the operation has expanded.
Best Meats offers beef, pork and chicken butchered and cut to order, with everything from tomahawk steaks and premium cuts for the grill to ground beef, offal and everyday selections for customers looking to stock the freezer. The shop also carries products from trusted vendors, including seafood, Boar’s Head meats and cheeses and Badia spices.
Shoppers can choose individual cuts or take advantage of rotating specials, including a Pick 5 for $24.99. The shop also accepts EBT.
But Rob says the butcher shop is as much about sharing knowledge as selling meat.
Customers come in with questions about which cut to choose, how to prepare it, how to cut it and how to properly store it. The staff also helps explain some of the things shoppers may encounter when buying fresh meat, including why ground beef naturally turns brown and what separates the shop’s products from meat typically found in big-box stores.
That approach carries over to Best Meats Kitchen.
“We want to highlight what we have in the butcher shop, the actual cuts that we offer, and continue with the all-natural, farm-to-table approach that is so important to us,” Rob says. “It’s what we believe in.”
One menu item came about almost by accident.
The shop received an order of spinalis, the prized outer portion of the ribeye, also known as the ribeye cap. Rob considered sending it back before the crew decided to cut it, season it and see what they had.
“Michael, our chef, seasoned it with some Lane’s seasoning and cut it down, and we had these really nice steaks,” Rob says.
They realized the 6-ounce butcher-cut spinalis was an ideal size for steak and eggs. Now customers can order it at Best Meats Kitchen, along with a menu designed around the fresh meats and products available at the butcher shop.
For Rob and Suzanne, that is the point of the new restaurant. Customers can learn about a cut at the butcher counter, taste what can be done with it in the Kitchen and then take it home and cook it themselves.
“Our goal is to share our knowledge with people so they are cooking the best product the best way and to be a place where customers know they are getting the best meat in the area,” Rob says.
Best Meats is located at 2468 US 441, Suite 105, in Fruitland Park. For more information, call 352.748.2355 or visit bestmeatsfl.com.
Gina moved to Central Florida from the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021. She holds a degree in linguistics and has worked as a fashion editor, photo stylist, lifestyle columnist and food writer since 1995. She later covered travel, events, restaurants, music festivals and sports throughout Northern California, including work as a morning show host with KSAN radio and food critic for KRON Bay TV. A veteran bartender, she has worked in hospitality on and off since high school. Gina joined Akers Media in 2022 and is currently the Food and Lifestyle Editor. Her passions include travel, road trips, history books and podcasts, tasting menus and arriving in a new city without a map.
