In 2000, Adna resident Jim Smith began smoking and processing wild game meat for himself and his hunting buddies inside what was originally his home’s garage.
By 2005, he had officially opened up Uncle Jim’s Smokehouse and was processing around 15,000 pounds of meat — mostly into pepperoni or sausage — each year.
Since then, the business has grown, and though he didn’t have an exact figure, Jim estimated it processes and smokes anywhere between 130,000 to 150,000 pounds of meat per year from Washington and Oregon.
That includes an average of about 1,000 pounds Jim selects to process himself weekly for sale at the Adna Grocery Store, along with anywhere from 1,500 to 2,000 additional pounds of wild game meat hunters bring in every week.
“It doesn’t matter if they bring in 25 pounds or 500 pounds, we can handle it,” Jim said.
Uncle Jim’s Smokehouse processes all types of game meat, too, from venison and elk to bear and cougar, and can also process turkeys.
Now, 25 years later at the age of 74, Jim is passing majority ownership of the business off to his son, Mark Smith.
“I’ll still be around, though,” Jim told The Chronicle. “We’re kind of going through the steps, and I’m slowly retiring.”
The business is mostly family-operated. Alongside Jim and Mark are Jim’s wife, Cindy Smith, and Cindy’s daughter, Kellie Raschke, who has now worked at the smokehouse for 18 years.
“(Cindy) is the brains of the operation. I think of things and she makes them happen,” Jim said.
Not all employees are family though, including Lisa Fitzgerald, of Curtis, who was busy vacuum sealing pepperoni during The Chronicle’s visit to Uncle Jim’s Smokehouse on Wednesday, Jan. 8.
“She’s like family to us though,” Jim added.
Though the business has been in the family now for a quarter of a century, Mark only recently started working at Uncle Jim’s Smokehouse in October 2024 after leaving the logging industry as a log scaler.
“When we first started out, Mark said, ‘Dad why are you wasting your time doing this?’” Jim said.
Unfortunately for Mark, the logging industry has been going through downsizing recently.
Fortunately, though, Uncle Jim’s Smokehouse has grown into a regionally known smokehouse popular with hunters for hundreds of miles around, allowing Mark to remain close to family and friends in Adna where he grew up.
“If I wasn’t doing this, I’d be all the way out in the Gorge working,” Mark said.
An Adna High School graduate, Mark said he looks forward to smoking and processing meat for his friends and neighbors.
“They better bring their meat from their hunts here,” Mark added.
While Mark has no plans to change any recipes at Uncle Jim’s Smokehouse, he does hope to move the business into a larger building at a different location, both for more space and to move it off the family’s private property in Adna.
“Maybe get USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) approved, too,” Mark said.
Getting USDA approval would allow Uncle Jim’s Smokehouse to sell wholesale to commercial supermarkets.
Currently, Uncle Jim’s Smokehouse sells products at the Adna Grocery Store — located at 109 Bunker Creek Road — and out of its mobile catering trailer, but aside from that, it can only sell meat products from the smokehouse in Adna.
For more information on the processing services Uncle Jim’s Smokehouse provides, or for information on the mobile catering trailer, call Mark at 360-219-8450 or message the business on its Facebook page at https://tinyurl.com/b3tn97jk.
Uncle Jim’s Smokehouse is located at 1387 Ceres Hill Road in Adna.
