You might find that a lot of professional knife sharpening services pick-up from restaurants only or you have to pay for shipping to have your blades sharpened. Thankfully you can conveniently drop of your knives at Blackhawk Hardware to have them sharpened by the knife and blade experts Troutman Sharpening Service. Troutman stops by Blackhawk on their knife route three times a week.
My go to kitchen knives are my paring and my chef’s knives. I love the paring knife for peeling fruits like apples and pears and to slice smaller ingredients like shallots and garlic cloves. The chef’s knife is of course indispensable and is the knife I use most in my kitchen. I use it to slice, cube and mince just about anything from onions to meat to cucumbers to… you get the idea. After all that holiday cooking and years of good use I recently noticed that my knives, especially the two I just mentioned were just not as sharp anymore as when I bought them. Time to get them sharpened.
While there are plenty of at home sharpening devices, nothing beats professionally sharpened knives. I do like having them on hand for my cheap knives that I also just run in the dishwasher (GASP) but for my good knives I go to the pros and use my honing steel in between. At a cost of $3 per knife / $4 for a serrated one, I can’t not afford treating them to a professional sharpening. After all, there’s a reason why restaurant pros use knife pros. When I took a knife skills class at CPCC (highly recommended by the way, it really elevated my chopping skills and it was a fun morning) the instructor recommended Troutmans services at Blackhawk. That and always looking for new material for this blog, how could I not try them?! I was disappointed.
The hardest part in the process was getting my knives to Blackhawk Hardware for sharpening as I had misplaced their knife sleeves. I wrapped them in a kitchen towel and then wrapped a rubber band around them. Worked like a charm. I dropped my two knives off at the customer service desk at the back of Blackhawk Hardware and filled out a tiny form. Two days later I returned to pick up my guys. Not a bad amount of days to live without your favorite knives and much faster than mailing them in for sharpening. Blackhawk had done a fine job safely wrapping my now super sharp knives and I eagerly unwrapped them at home. Oh yeah… that’s sharp! Can’t wait to cook dinner with them tonight!
For a complete price lists of knives and blades that can be dropped off at Blackhawk Hardware for sharpening please see here.
