MeatEater Plants Its Flag in Edina: Inside the Hunting Brand's Boldest Retail Move Yet
On August 15, 2026, a brand built in deer blinds and on streaming platforms opened its doors in one of the Twin Cities' most polished retail corridors. MeatEater — the outdoor media and consumer products empire anchored by Steven Rinella's long-running television and podcast franchise — debuted its third American store at 50th and France in Edina, Minnesota, a shopping district better known for wine bars and boutique clothing shops than game calls and decoys. The contrast is entirely intentional.
For anyone who has followed the MeatEater story from its scrappy early days as a cable television hunting show to its current incarnation as a vertically integrated outdoor lifestyle company, the Edina opening represents something more than a new address. It is a statement about where hunting culture sits in 2026 — squarely in the middle of mainstream American commerce — and a clear signal that Rinella and his team believe the market for serious, conservation-minded outdoor gear has reached a critical mass that demands a physical retail presence in the nation's heartland.
The Store: What's Inside and Why It Matters
Location and Square Footage
MeatEater will open a 3,200-square-foot retail space, its third in the nation, at 3924 W 50th St. The building that now houses MeatEater's Minnesota outpost has its own local history worth noting. MeatEater is taking the old At Home furniture store next to Crisp & Green at 3924 50th St. It is a significant square-footage commitment for a brand that only entered physical retail two years ago, and it speaks to how seriously the company is approaching this expansion.
What's on the Shelves
The store features a carefully selected assortment of products, including MeatEater's own branded apparel and books, alongside its portfolio of specialized companies: First Lite technical hunting apparel, FHF Gear accessories, Phelps Game Calls, and the highly regarded Dave Smith Decoys. Beyond those core product lines, the new store will feature a curated assortment of products from across MeatEater's family of brands, including MeatEater-branded products such as branded logo wear, hard goods, books, games and food products, with exclusive merchandise, seasonal product assortments and educational experiences tailored to the local hunting and fishing community.
That "all-under-one-roof" model is central to MeatEater's retail philosophy. This approach allows customers to see, touch, and test gear they have likely only seen featured on the brand's popular Netflix shows or podcasts. It bridges the gap between the aspirational world that Rinella projects on screen — tracking elk in Montana, fly-fishing remote rivers, cooking wild game over open fire — and the practical reality of gearing up for a weekend whitetail hunt in western Wisconsin or a walleye trip on Mille Lacs. That translation from screen to shelf is where MeatEater believes it holds a distinct advantage over conventional sporting goods retailers.
Events and Community Programming
The Edina store is not designed purely as a transactional space. The company plans to host in-store events, gear demonstrations, educational seminars, and appearances from MeatEater personalities. For the grand opening weekend specifically, the Edina location is set up to host in-store events from educational talks to gear demonstrations, and to celebrate the opening, the brand hosted giveaways and had appearances from people associated with its TV show and podcast. That kind of programming — the ability to draw a crowd through media celebrity and then convert that crowd into educated, loyal customers — is a model that few companies in the outdoor industry can replicate. MeatEater can, because it created the celebrities itself.
From Netflix to Retail Floors: The MeatEater Origin Story
The outdoor lifestyle brand is an offshoot of Steven Rinella's TV series and podcast of the same name, which focuses on outdoor adventures, conservation, and, well, meat. What began as a relatively niche hunting show has grown into something considerably more complex. Host of the long-running TV series MeatEater and The MeatEater Podcast, Rinella has gained wide popularity with hunters, anglers, and others through his passion for outdoor adventure and wild foods, as well as his strong commitment to conservation.
Rinella is not a conventional spokesperson. He is a Michigan-born writer and hunter who brings genuine intellectual seriousness to questions about wild food, ecology, and American hunting tradition. That authenticity has translated into a following that goes well beyond the typical outdoor brand demographic. Founder Steven Rinella — the face of the brand, which includes a TV series, podcast and his personal Instagram following of 1.3 million (nearly as large as the @meateater audience) — hails from Michigan. His individual reach is as powerful a marketing asset as the brand's official channels, and that dual engine of content and personality has become the foundation on which MeatEater's entire retail strategy rests.
With the belief that a deeper understanding of the natural world enriches all of our lives, MeatEater brings together leading influencers in the categories of hunting, fishing, wild foods, and conservation to provide a community of fans with premium content, apparel, equipment, and experiences. The company's video distribution is notably broad: MeatEater's video content is distributed via Netflix; Outdoor Sportsman Group cable networks; YouTube; its website; its own free ad-supported TV (FAST) channel on Samsung TV, Amazon, Roku, Dish, Vizio; and numerous ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) platforms. That kind of multi-platform reach gives MeatEater a top-of-funnel advantage that traditional outdoor retailers cannot buy their way into.
The Retail Rollout: Bozeman to Brookfield to Edina
The Bozeman Flagship
MeatEater's physical retail story started in its own backyard. MeatEater opened its first MeatEater-branded retail store at 129 W. Main St. in downtown Bozeman. This was the first MeatEater store nationwide, opening in 2024 at the company's Bozeman, Montana headquarters. The Bozeman flagship was the controlled experiment — a way to test how the brand translated from digital content to physical space in a city where outdoor culture is deeply embedded in everyday life and MeatEater's employees walk the same streets as the store's customers. By all accounts, it worked.
The Milwaukee Expansion
Emboldened by Bozeman, the brand pushed east into the Midwest. MeatEater, Inc. opened its second MeatEater-branded retail store at The Corners of Brookfield shopping center, outside of Milwaukee. Located at 340 N Lord Street in the Town of Brookfield, the store sits just 20 minutes from downtown Milwaukee and is surrounded by a vibrant network of public and private hunting lands and abundant lakes and rivers. The Brookfield store was larger than Bozeman — the 3,700 square foot store features a curated assortment of gear from MeatEater's full brand portfolio, including First Lite, FHF Gear, Phelps Game Calls, and Dave Smith Decoys.
When that second store was announced, Rinella framed the Milwaukee move in the plainest possible terms. "This isn't just another sporting goods store," he said. "It's a place for folks who prepare, persist, and respect the hunt. We're proud to build a space where you come to swap stories, learn something new, and gear up for whatever's next. Opening this store in Wisconsin, where the hunting and fishing tradition runs so deep, feels like a natural fit."
The Milwaukee-area store also helped MeatEater articulate what its Chief Commercial Officer Kevin Eskridge has called an omni-channel strategy. "This store represents the next chapter in our omni-channel strategy," Eskridge said. "We've seen how powerful it is when our content, commerce, and community come together in one physical space. The Milwaukee store allows us to better serve our existing fans while introducing new customers to the values and performance-driven products that define our brands."
First Lite's Hailey Foothold
The MeatEater family's physical retail history actually predates the Bozeman flagship by two years. The Edina location joins the MeatEater family's First Lite Flagship store, which opened in Hailey, Idaho, in 2022. First Lite is the premium technical hunting apparel brand owned by MeatEater. The Hailey store was an early proof-of-concept for the parent company — evidence that hunters would show up in person to buy premium gear from a brand they first encountered online or on television. That Idaho experiment informed everything that came after it.
Why Minnesota? The Data Behind the Decision
The choice of Edina was not random, and it was not purely sentimental, even though Rinella grew up in neighboring Michigan. Data led the brand to the Twin Cities, said Michale Brunker, MeatEater's senior manager of direct-to-consumer retail. The data pointed decisively north. "So much of our content is consumed in the Midwest," Brunker said. And Minnesota in particular stood out from the crowd. Minnesota has one of MeatEater's highest rates of content consumption.
The numbers bear it out on a broader scale as well. Annually, the state sells approximately 500,000 hunting licenses and one million fishing licenses, creating a deep and engaged customer base. Minnesota ranked 16th nationwide for most registered hunters, according to a 2023 report by Stacker. Those are not hobbyists dabbling in the outdoors — they are committed sportspeople who spend real money on real gear, exactly the kind of customer that MeatEater's product lineup is designed to serve.
Rinella himself weighed in on what Minnesota means to him and to the brand. "Minnesota's outdoor heritage isn't an accident," he said. "It was built by hunters and anglers who supported conservation, did the habitat work and showed up for wildlife when it mattered. We want this store to be part of that — a place where people come to gear up, sure, but also to talk about the land and water and how we can preserve our lifestyles for future generations." That language is deliberate. It positions the Edina store not as a retail outpost but as a community institution — a gathering place for people who take their relationship with wild places seriously.
The Brand Portfolio Behind the Shelves
One of the things that separates MeatEater from conventional outdoor retailers is the depth of its owned brands. Rather than simply curating other companies' products, MeatEater has built and acquired a portfolio of specialized labels that cover the full spectrum of serious hunting. MeatEater, Inc. is the parent company of First Lite (technical hunting apparel), FHF Gear (outdoor accessories), Phelps Game Calls, and Dave Smith Decoys. Each of those subsidiaries carries significant credibility among experienced hunters — First Lite is widely regarded as one of the top technical hunting apparel companies in the country; Dave Smith Decoys are considered by many waterfowl hunters to be the industry's gold standard for realism and durability.
Bringing all of those labels under one roof in Edina gives the store a range and depth of authority that a general sporting goods retailer simply cannot match. A customer can walk in looking for a merino base layer, pick up a Phelps diaphragm call, browse Rinella's back catalog of books on wild food, and leave with a bag of MeatEater-branded jerky. That kind of cross-category completeness, all filtered through a coherent worldview about hunting, conservation, and wild food, is the experience MeatEater is selling — not just the individual products.
"This is the next chapter in our omni-channel strategy," said MeatEater Chief Commercial Officer Kevin Eskridge in a statement. "Our stores are where the full MeatEater portfolio comes to life." The blueprint, tested in Bozeman and Brookfield, is now being applied to a market that is simultaneously more urban and more deeply connected to outdoor tradition than either of those previous locations.
Competing in a Crowded Market
The Twin Cities outdoor retail market is not wide open. The new store enters a competitive landscape populated by national giants like REI and Cabela's, as well as the high-end SITKA Gear store at the nearby Mall of America. And those are just the national players. The store will also contend with a vibrant network of beloved local and independent shops, from Trailmark Outfitters in Edina to Hoigaard's in St. Louis Park, which have built loyal followings through specialized knowledge and community service.
The presence of a SITKA store at the Mall of America is particularly interesting context. SITKA Gear is another premium hunting apparel brand that has used quality, aesthetics, and a devoted community to carve out space in a market dominated by big-box retailers. Its success in the Twin Cities suggests that Minnesota hunters are willing to pay for premium products and show up in person to buy them — exactly the thesis that MeatEater is betting on.
MeatEater's strategy appears to be one of differentiation rather than direct confrontation. By leveraging its powerful media engine and the loyal following of its personalities, the brand aims to draw in customers who already feel a part of the MeatEater world. That pre-existing relationship — forged over years of podcast episodes, YouTube videos, Netflix seasons, and Instagram posts — is something no established local retailer can replicate overnight. When a Minnesota hunter walks into the Edina store for the first time, there is a strong chance he already knows Rinella's voice, his opinions on wild food, and his philosophy on conservation. That intimacy is worth more than any loyalty card program.
What This Means for the Outdoor Industry
Media-to-Retail as a Business Model
MeatEater's expansion into physical retail is being watched closely across the outdoor industry, because it represents a proof-of-concept for a model that other media-driven brands are eager to replicate. The logic is straightforward: build a massive, loyal audience through content, then convert that audience into customers through both e-commerce and physical retail. Most of MeatEater's revenue comes from commerce sales via the brands it acquired, its online store and in-person retail, and the company's online e-commerce platform, The MeatEater Store, today sells over 700 partner and specialty products. The physical stores function as both revenue generators and marketing investments — a walk-in customer who sees the full brand portfolio laid out in a well-designed space is likely to become a more loyal and higher-spending online customer afterward.
The Hunt for the Right Neighborhood
It is worth pausing on the specific geography of the Edina choice. The 50th and France corridor is an upscale, walkable shopping district — the kind of place where you are more likely to encounter a Restoration Hardware or a Williams-Sonoma than a camo rack. That is not a bug in MeatEater's plan; it is a feature. Placing a hunting brand in an affluent, design-conscious retail environment sends a message about where hunting culture belongs in 2026 America. It belongs alongside the other premium lifestyle categories. It belongs on the main street of a prosperous suburb, not hidden in an industrial strip mall next to an ATV dealership.
That repositioning of hunting as a premium lifestyle — rather than a blue-collar pastime — has been one of the central cultural projects of the MeatEater brand since its earliest days. Rinella has consistently argued, through his writing and his television work, that hunting and wild food are sophisticated pursuits worthy of serious intellectual and culinary attention. The Edina address is the retail manifestation of that argument.
The Omni-Channel Blueprint
This immersive retail experience brings together MeatEater's content-driven storytelling, high-performance gear, and a deep respect for the natural world. That combination — story, product, and values — is what outdoor industry analysts have long said is missing from the conventional big-box shopping experience. Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops built their empires on selection and spectacle. MeatEater is building its stores on intimacy and identity. Whether that model can scale beyond three locations is the question the industry is watching most closely.
What Hunters and Anglers Can Expect
For the average Minnesota hunter or angler, the Edina store represents something genuinely new in the local retail landscape. It is not another generalist outdoor store stocking every category from kayaks to camping stoves. It is a curated, focused experience built around the specific gear, values, and knowledge base of hunting and fishing. The company caters to hunters, anglers, and other "conservation-minded outdoor adventurers," with goods that include clothing, books, food, First Lite hunting apparel, FHF gear, game calls, and decoys.
The educational programming component may ultimately prove to be the store's most valuable differentiator. In an era when most product research happens online, the opportunity to attend a seminar on waterfowl calling technique or hear a MeatEater personality discuss elk hunting strategy in person — and then immediately pick up the gear relevant to that conversation — creates a retail experience that an algorithm cannot fully replicate. MeatEater has built its entire media business around teaching people to hunt, fish, and cook wild food. The Edina store extends that classroom into the physical world.
The Road Ahead
Three stores in three years — Bozeman in 2024, Brookfield in 2025, Edina in 2026 — suggests a deliberate, methodical expansion pace. MeatEater is not trying to open 50 locations overnight. It is testing each market, learning from each store, and refining its retail formula before committing to the next move. The Midwest focus of both the Brookfield and Edina openings is no coincidence. The Edina location marks MeatEater's next step in connecting directly with its growing community of hunters, anglers and conservation-minded outdoor adventurers throughout the Upper Midwest.
The Upper Midwest is MeatEater country in the most literal sense — dense with public land, rich with hunting and fishing tradition, and home to a large base of consumers who have already proven their willingness to spend on premium outdoor gear. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, the Dakotas: the region represents a substantial and underserved market for a brand with MeatEater's specific value proposition.
Whether the Edina store succeeds or stumbles will say a great deal about the viability of the media-to-retail model in the outdoor industry. But if the data that brought MeatEater to the Twin Cities is as solid as Brunker and his team believe, and if the Bozeman and Brookfield blueprints transfer cleanly to a Minnesota audience, there is every reason to think that the 50th and France address will become as central to MeatEater's story as the Montana headquarters where it all started. Deer camp, it turns out, is wherever the brand decides to plant a flag.
