A long-standing butcher shop with an iconic sign is leaving its home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
After countless years of “Live Poultry, Fresh Killed,” the Mayflower Poultry Company is moving to Boston.
“The sign is great, but the food is even better,” said Charles Prater, who lives around the corner.
A paper posted out front says the building has been sold and Friday was their last day open.
“It’s bad news for everybody,” said Fawzi Abdulrazak, who has been staring at the storefront for 28 years from the front gate of his bookshop.
“When I bought this place, I used to hear the roosters in the morning, but unfortunately things change and must change,” Abdulrazak said.
The question was: What to do about the sign?
“It’s kind of an emblem of local business in East Cambridge. It has a lot of history with how we were a meat packing industry,” East Cambridge Business Association executive director Jason Alves said. “We wanted to try and get it into our possession and make sure that it was able to continue to live on in East Cambridge in some form.”
There was an auction Thursday right out front with bidders raising the prince in person, over the phone and online.
The business association won.
“The final price tag for the sign was 14,500 dollars,” Alves said. “It was a real community effort to try to keep this in the neighborhood.”
Praters says while it’s great to see the sign stay in town, it is sad to see the landmark go.
“We’re going to miss it,” he said.
The sign will be removed and moved to a new location, though it was not immediately clear where that would be.
