A greet and meat has taken place as a familiar face has opened a new butchers in Petersfield town centre.

Daniel Jones Traditional Butchers is the realisation of a long-held ambition as the former manager of Morgans recently left the Lavant Street butchers to launch his own.

And the early signs were encouraging for the pork idol as plenty of customers had cased out the joint on Chapel Street before town mayor, Cllr Paige, cut the ribbon on Saturday.

“I was at Morgans for 16 years and that’s quite a long time to be in one job – you get to the point where you want to do something on your own and give it a go,” said Mr Jones.

“I just thought another butchers in town gives people another option.

“I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t think there was room for another butchers in Petersfield.

“When you talk about competition you’ve got to look at all the cafes and hairdressers in town and all of them are always busy and doing well.”

The butchers – with its tagline ‘nothing else makes the cut’ – replaces Dylan’s Ice Cream with Daniel being drawn to the unit because of its size and traditional windows.

The team had a few late nights in giving the unit a stunning transformation with a mural of Mr Jones taking pride of place alongside its marvellous mixture of meats.

“We can pretty much get anything,” said Daniel, adding: “It’s all locally sourced, as much as it can be.

“The lamb is grass fed, the beef is Scottish, the bacon is dry cured and the chicken is free range.

“There’s been a few late nights trying to get it all together and we were here until 11.30pm last night (Friday) but we’re really happy with the response so far.”