Ex-Butchershop employees launch new venture after the agency closed without warning

A new agency, Strange Family, has sprung from the ashes of San Francisco agency Butchershop, which suddenly closed under seemingly murky circumstances in May 2023. In its eight months in business, Strange Family has represented a fresh start for its 22 employees who previously worked at the shuttered Butchershop. “The name’s got a triple meaning for us,” said Ben McNutt, co-founder and executive creative director at Strange Family, and a former Butchershop executive. “We had a real strange start. We’re also trying to do brave work and for us, that’s work that breaks and pushes against category norms. Our model is a collective, which is somewhat of a strange way to approach this.” While Strange Family is moving forward, Butchershop’s story still hasn’t ended. An ongoing lawsuit (which can be read in full below) filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco by its former founder and sole owner Trevor Hubbard claims that Butchershop’s financial advisor, a company named CFO Rick, and its owner Rick Belgarde, defrauded the agency and its employees. CFO Rick has denied those allegations in legal filings. Hubbard and Belgarde did not respond to requests for comment for this story. See all of Ad Age’s 2024 Creativity Award winners here This is the first time McNutt, who is also the former chief creative officer of Butchershop, is speaking about his new venture. McNutt said he was “devastated” when he found out that the agency, which he had been with for more than seven years, was shutting down. “It was just a total crap situation for everybody,” McNutt said. “Unexpectedly getting broadsided with over 100 employees, myself included, suddenly without a job or final paychecks. Clients who paid good money for good work, who probably weren’t going to see it and the whole network of agency partners were kind of left sort of holding the bag.” Look back: Butchershop shuts down suddenly “I believe there are only two people that truly know what happened at Butchershop and I’m not one of them,” McNutt added. A strange beginning Strange Family is meant to operate as a collective through its two offerings, Strange Studios, which focuses on brand-led creative, and Strange Pixels, which is focused on design-driven digital work led out of the agency’s Guadalajara, Mexico, office. Executive Digital Director Hector Garcia, Director of Business Christian Dominguez and Director of Operations Carlos Dominguez—who also co-founded Strange Family—lead that office. The agency also has an office in Oakland, California. Half of the agency’s current clients are former Butchershop clients. Strange Family’s roster includes Nike Kids, workflow software company Zapier (commercial below), media company Just Women’s Sports, software platform GitLab, roller skate brand Fantom, adventure travel company Arctic Adventures, telehealth company Opt Health, enterprise collaboration software company Appfire, privacy and security software company OneTrust and cyber insurance provider At-Bay. McNutt said it was important to frame the agency as a collective since it can work across its two offerings as solutions in the U.S. and Mexico. The agency is also actively finding other agencies to partner with on projects to offer full-service work. For example, Strange Family recently handled strategy and creative development work for a Nike Kids project (below) and partnered with creative studio and production company, Even/Odd, which handled content production. It has also worked with other agencies for projects, such as Study Hall, Breakfast for Dinner, and Edition Design which partnered on work for Just Women's Sports. “Most of the clients that we’re working with are in high-growth markets and are brands that are on their way to building and establishing their position,” McNutt said. “They need an agency that can be upstream with them and think about how they’re pivoting or positioning the brand and then instantly being able to move quickly into how that comes to life in activation and digital experience.” An ongoing lawsuit Meanwhile, the Butchershop lawsuit grinds on, with the hearing beginning yesterday. The lawsuit filed by Hubbard in late October 2023, which also names Karen Keller, a tax director at CFO Rick, as a defendant, claims that Belgarde and CFO Rick are responsible for defrauding Butchershop by not paying payroll taxes for Butchershop’s employees and misusing and misrepresenting the cash amounts in employee 401(k) plans. Keller did not respond to Ad Age’s request for comment by press time. The lawsuit also alleges that CFO Rick intentionally withheld information and misled Hubbard about how certain finances were being handled. In February 2023, the lawsuit claims, Hubbard discovered Butchershop owed $975,000 in payroll taxes. The lawsuit also claims that due to financial advice given by CFO Rick and its alleged fraudulent activity, Butchershop was responsible for over $5.9 million in debt. Shortly after Butchershop closed on May 12, 2023, the agency filed for bankruptcy. Belgarde and Keller’s lawyers filed a counterclaim denying the allegations and the lawsuit is ongoing. Those attorneys declined to comment on the suit to Ad Age. The lawsuit claims that before it closed, Butchershop’s revenue grew from approximately $6 million in 2018 to $15 million in 2022. Hubbard was looking to sell his shop and it was valued by potential buyers at approximately $20 million to $30 million, the suit claims. “Butchershop as you can see for a very long time had a very positive growth trajectory,” Angela De La Housaye, CEO and founder of De La Housaye and Associates, the law firm representing Hubbard, told Ad Age. “Trevor’s main goal was that growth, and he was on track. He was a very committed employer and felt very strongly about the agency and its success. Anything that went sideways would be identified in the lawsuit that was filed.” McNutt said Strange Family’s employees have put the situation behind them and expect to make more hires this year. “There [were] so many unanswered questions for all of us, it was pretty wild,” McNutt said. “But quickly we said, ‘We can spend our energy trying to [harp] on that, or we can move forward and try to make the best of this.’ And it’s been incredibly liberating.”

Ex-Butchershop employees launch new venture after the agency closed without warning

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