Road-trip rule: if the cooler is coming, give it something worth carrying.
In northern Michigan, this family-owned meat market has been making that stop worthwhile since 1987. Jerky, brats, snack sticks, and smoked meats give the usual gas-station snack run some serious competition.
The shop still handles much of the work in-house, including cutting and cooking. That keeps the focus on old-fashioned meat-market methods instead of shelves filled with products made somewhere else.
The business has also stayed in the family, with the next generation taking over in 2019 and keeping those traditions moving.
A quick stop can turn into provisions for the rest of the drive pretty fast.
If you ask me, the real challenge is making sure the jerky survives the drive home.
The Smoker Does Most Of The Talking Here
Some businesses build their identity around constant change. Gabe’s has built its identity around smoke.
The market is an old-fashioned meat shop specializing in smoked meats, and its production process explains why that wording fits.
Meat is selected, butchered, trimmed, processed, prepared, cooked, and smoked through the operation rather than arriving as a finished product ready for the shelf.
Mike and Kathy Gabourie established Gabe’s Country Smoked Meats in 1987, then spent more than three decades developing the shop before their son Mike took ownership in 2019.
He had already been involved with making jerky and learning the work long before that transition.
Smoking remains central to the operation. Gabe’s says its smokers can run for hours during a normal production day, with some products staying in the smoker much longer than others.
The in-house setup also allows the shop to offer custom meat orders and processing services alongside its regular retail selection. If you like seeing a business stay close to the work that made its name, this Maple City market keeps the process close at hand.
Jerky Gives Road Trippers A Reason To Pull Over
Jerky is one of the easiest foods to understand in road-trip terms. It takes up little cooler space, travels well, and gives you something substantial to reach for between stops.
Gabe’s makes both beef and turkey jerky, and the current selection reaches beyond one standard flavor.
The shop lists original beef and turkey versions along with barbecue options, while beef varieties can include Cajun, peppered, prime rib, spicy, sweet and spicy, mesquite, and teriyaki.
The market says it smokes jerky according to demand rather than treating it as a product that has to sit in large quantities waiting to sell. That matches the shop’s broader emphasis on in-house production and active batch preparation.
You do not have to know your favorite before you arrive. A mild original version keeps things simple, barbecue adds a sweeter direction, and several pepper-forward choices bring more heat if that is what you want beside the highway.
The shop is located at 12963 S Maple City Rd, Maple City, MI 49664. The market is listed as open year-round.
Once the jerky is in the car, the only real challenge is deciding how much of it is supposed to survive the drive home.
In-House Work Goes Well Beyond Jerky
Jerky may be the easiest product to take on the road, but the shop’s production work is much broader.
Gabe’s says its meat and smoking work is handled in-house. Its process includes butchering, trimming, processing, prepping, cooking, and smoking, with the current owner involved throughout those stages.
The business also accepts custom orders, giving customers options beyond what happens to be ready in the case that day.
You are not limited to grabbing one packaged snack and leaving. The shop functions as a working meat market with several types of house-prepared products, plus processing services tied to the same equipment and skills used for the retail side.
The smoking schedule can vary with demand and the product being made. According to the business, some meats spend up to ten hours smoking. Not every item follows one identical formula, so the smoker is part of a larger production routine.
For you, the practical result is variety. One counter can cover food for the drive, meat for later meals, and products that can go straight into the freezer when the trip is over.
Brats And Snack Sticks Fill Out The Selection
If jerky gets the first look, the brat and snack-stick lists give you plenty of reasons to check the rest of the selection.
Gabe’s currently lists a wide range of brat flavors, although availability can change with the season.
The lineup can include original, cheddar, cherry, smoked original, sweet pineapple, potato, and other rotating combinations.
You may not see every flavor on every visit, so choosing from what is being made at the time is part of the stop.
Snack sticks add another easy road food. Gabe’s lists varieties such as summer sausage, teriyaki, prime rib, Hunter’s Stick, jalapeño cheddar, honey barbecue, mango habanero, chili cheese, and peppered.
They are sold as a separate product line from the jerky, so you can mix textures and flavors instead of buying several versions of the same snack.
Bologna and franks are part of the shop’s regular product categories as well. Today, the selection stretches across jerky, snack sticks, brats, franks, bologna, and other meat-market staples, giving you options for the drive, the grill, or the freezer.
Fresh Prepared Food Makes The Stop More Useful
A road-trip market becomes more useful when it can solve the immediate hunger problem as well as the cooler problem.
Gabe’s says it prepares fresh cooked food daily for grab-and-go meals. The exact dishes can change, so treat the prepared-food section as a rotating part of the business rather than arriving for one specific side or entree.
That flexibility suits a working meat market. The main product categories are easy to identify, while daily prepared food can follow what the kitchen is making and what is available at the shop.
If you have been driving for hours, that gives you another option beyond opening the jerky before you have even made it back to the car. You can check the prepared selection, pick something ready to eat, and save the packaged meats for the rest of the route or for home.
The store also offers custom orders, which can be useful when you are planning around a particular meal rather than browsing casually. Some brat flavors are seasonal, and product availability can change, so a flexible shopping list makes sense.
Think of the stop in two layers: something for right now, then something for the cooler. That arrangement lets you handle lunch, snacks, and later meals without turning the stop into a complicated detour.
Maple City Puts The Market In A Natural Touring Area
Maple City sits in Leelanau County, placing Gabe’s in a part of northern Michigan where driving is already part of the experience.
The shop is open throughout the year, so it can fit warm-weather touring, fall drives, or a colder northern Michigan trip without being treated as a seasonal attraction.
The location also makes sense for travelers exploring the broader Leelanau Peninsula and the communities around Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
Gabe’s says it serves Maple City as well as nearby places including Cedar, Empire, Glen Arbor, Glen Lake, Lake Leelanau, Leland, Northport, Suttons Bay, Lake Ann, and Traverse City.
You do not need to turn the visit into a major detour. It fits easily between larger plans: drive, pull in, choose what looks useful, and keep moving.
Still, there is enough happening inside that rushing the counter would miss the point. Give yourself time to look beyond the first bag of jerky.
The year-round schedule also means the stop is not tied to one travel season. You can work it into a summer outing, a fall color loop, or a cold-weather drive through the county.
You May Want To Leave Room In The Cooler
A little extra cooler space makes this stop easier.
Gabe’s sells products that suit several different plans at once. Jerky and snack sticks can stay close for the drive, while brats, franks, bologna, and other meat-market purchases can be saved for later meals.
The shop also offers shipping for some products and handles custom orders, so the business is not limited to whatever fits in your vehicle that afternoon.
Because brat flavors can change seasonally and daily prepared food can rotate, the simplest approach is to see what is available rather than building the whole trip around one exact item. That gives you room to choose from what the market is actively making.
The shop’s history now stretches back to 1987, with the business moving from its founders to the next generation while keeping meat processing and smoking at the center of the operation.
That continuity is easy to see in the current product range. Jerky, snack sticks, brats, franks, bologna, prepared food, custom orders, and other smoked or processed meats all fit under the same roof.
For a northern Michigan road trip, the formula stays simple. You pull off the road, look through the cases, pick a few things for now and later, then head back out with a cooler that suddenly has a much more important job.