The Elegant Farmer

I love, love LOVE The Elegant Farmer. When I moved to Madison and would come home, I would always stop here. Their deli selections are delicious, apple cider is awesome, pumpkins bar are to die for, peanut butter balls… Don’t even get me started on those… & the apple pie (or caramel apple pie if you prefer), you’ll never find anything better!

Stay away from the muffins. They say they are made daily. Yet mind was ice ice cold in the middle and could not get the paper off the muffin. Frozen? Or Old? I’m not sure but it was bad

It’s time for some fall fun activity. You can get apples, pumpkins, lunch, cinnamon donuts, and specialty groceries all in one shot!
This is a place I know I absolutely have to come to with family every year and we do. They do an awesome job putting this together!

I can’t believe that I’ve never been here before.
You want pickled things? Baked things? Little-​effort-​on-​your-​part-​to-​put-​together things? Yes, yes and yes. It’s all here! Picture every food item you’ve ever seen for sale in small town touristy type places like the Dells, Lake Geneva and ALL of Door County. That shit is here in spades! And yes, because Elegant Farmer is a touristy type place, said shit is overpriced. But, you buy it, because, you know, it’s only once a year that you come out to a farm and pick your own apples/​pumpkins/​gourds/​other fall items and buy «home made» shit.
We walked out of this place with 2 bags of pita chips to go with the cranberry salsa we sampled. Also, a cinnamon roll, a packet of «Mexicocoa: Mexican Spiced Hot Chocolate» and of course, the real reason you come to this particular tourist trap, a pie baked in a paper bag. For as busy as the place was on our visit (lines out the door), there was still a decent selection of pies to choose from. And, if your particular flavor was missing from the shelf, all you had to do was wait 3 minutes and a worker would come out of a back room with a cart loaded with your pie and several others. On our visit, we chose a caramel apple pie. Damn that thing looked good!
The pita chips were gobbled up within a week of our visit. The cranberry salsa just got thrown out last week (it got relegated to the nether regions of the refrigerator after getting sick of it within days of our visit). The cinnamon roll got eaten as soon as we got outside and found a seat. It was akin to a Cinnabon, just not served warm. The hot chocolate? I’m drinking it as I type… not spicy at all, but rather dull in flavor, like baking chocolate; like actual, off the tree cocoa. Not creamy like the cocoa we’re all used to, and I made this cup with milk, not water. The pie lasted a few days, because, I mean, we’re not animals. Ok, technically, we are, but we exercised some restraint and decimated the shit out of that pie over the course of a week (c’mon, it was apples and caramel!)…a record that it lasted that long in this house!
So, a solid 4 stars because it’s too expensive to give 5 stars, but I’m not kidding myself. I’ll be back for more pie.
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Fun farm experience but I didn’t understand what was all the buzz about the apple pie! It was really fine and even though marketed as baked in a special paper bag, I didn’t find it extremely good.

Come for the pie
This is a great spot for a weekend road trip for families or even couples. They’ve got apple picking in fall along with other outdoor activities that are sure to please. The store itself has a variety of fancy packaged foods along with a well-​stocked cheese and deli counter. The real stand-​out here is their baked goods, pie in a bag is to die for! Grab a pie, grab a slice of pie, whatever… You must get pie.

A giant smiling barn in the middle of nowhere.
The food here was great, and it was a nice place to look around and do some local-​feeling shopping.
The bathroom is a porta-​potty out in the greenhouse, and cops like to sit down the road from here, but all of that is worth it since it is a nice place in the middle of cheeseland.

I could get lost in the store. We went in to browse and left $ 88 poorer and with bags upon bags of goodies. The prices are great. They have all different types of jams, breads, salsas, fruits, vegetables, and sugary treats. And that’s just the beginning. The apple cider was SO good. The apple cider donuts were even better. The smell reaches your nose right when you get out of your car. The staff was a bit unfriendly but you get past it because you’re so entranced with the food around you.
For lunch we split a pulled pork sandwich, a bowl of chili with scoop chips and a loaded baked potato. For $ 19 we were more satisfied with the food here than some of the places we visited in Lake Geneva. I highly recommend making the Harvest Fest a must visit place on your vacation.

The Elegant Farmer is a commercialized business that is lost for all the sweet ma and pa joy that every true apple orchard should have. They have a nice market inside the barn, but you have to go with the traffic and it can get pretty crowded. I’d recommend buying a whole pie in a bag to go, rather than getting a slice at the orchard… Unless you love eating pie with your caramel, trust me.
Nit picky? But wait, there’s more! Crowds, crowds, crowds… And really unpleasant employees. I encountered two nice people working outside around the orchard, but that’s it. Every other employee was totally rude.
Also, bring your own lunch. The pulled pork sandwiches are overpriced and bland, as is the chicken pot pie.
And then let’s get to the apples. I don’t know if it’s a bad year for apples there, but they were not delicious. I can get tastier apples at the discount market, but they’re not as fun because I didn’t pick them.
Sorry, Elegant Farmer, I’m SO sad to say this, but I like your pie and your market and that’s about it.

Exactly what you want from a «country» store for out of town visitors: beautiful, local or fresh produce, in-​house bakery, souvenir food items. All items extremely high quality. They must have gotten the memo about staff friendliness bc everyone we encountered was very kind and helpful. A bit pricey but well worth it. We got fantastic sandwiches and sides at the deli, ate at picnic tables outside and met other families. Young children love the tall rocking horses out front. Then back in for ice cream and pie. Great experience – a DONT MISS!

I remember coming here a lot when I was little. Good memories of my childhood came rushing back when I went to visit today. Love the smiley barn.
Do yourself a favor and buy the English Toffee. The have huge slabs of it for about $ 11.90/lb. It is so thick and has such a pure toffee flavor. Bought half a pound and it wasn’t enough. It’s addictive!

The apple picking is great as the kids can climb the trees. The corn maze is also great — not to mention the famous apple pie and great apple donuts. However I’m not sure why in the world they city-​fied the pumpkin patch — it’s totally pathetic and a sad excuse for a pumpkin patch — they went through and cut all the pumpkins off the vines, eliminated the ugly ones, and nicely placed them on mowed paths. If you’ve never been outside a major city this may be ok, but if you want a real pumpkin patch, you don’t want to go here.

This has become an annual fall stop for our family and some of our friends. The orchard is great. You’re free to roam and pick and sample. There’s even an incentive to pick up discarded apples to receive a snickerdoodle cookie for free.
I’m not a fan of the shop. We didn’t even wander through this year because it’s always incredibly crowded, and a little overpriced. If you need stocking stuffers, they definitely have them!
The café is nice — we usually grab a bowl of chili.
They have pony rides, and plenty of other extra things to spend money on, but I like to keep it simple. And no matter how busy the place gets, the orchard never seems overrun with people.

Fun place to come especially for the Apple pie naked in a bag. Expensive but very fun in fall with the activities and fall for and fun. Train and helicopter rides. Parking in rough during peak times.

Ok I get to East Troy about twice a year and I have even been to the trolley station connected to them many times but I have never went in. Man what was wrong with me because this place is freaking awesome and is a family destination with all the family’s here.
This was definitely a cool place with all the farmers market items and a hot food and deli area to enjoy a meal. The fresh pot pies looked great but I would leave with some home made soup and the cider baked ham. I wanted to try everything but I did have some restraint. The beef Styx and jerky looked good above the thick cut bacon.
There is just way too much here to explain and you have to check it out, I will post pictures to better show my experience. I can’t wait until the next time I get back.

Okay so I made a special trip to this place because of their «Apple Pie baked in a bag» fame. But when we got there, we learned that they wouldn’t heat up the pie for us so we could eat it there. I had read that they actually serve it by the slice, and I assume, warm, because that’s the best way to consume apple pie. Nope. Soo we had to eat it room temperature with the flimsy sporks they provided. It was still an amazing pie, but the experience was definitely dampened. :/​
I also munched on some fresh cheese curds, which were delicious, especially when I later put them on some French fries and covered the whole thing in gravy (a la poutine). They also had heaping samples of fresh homemade Summerberry applesauce (I took two ;)) My boy got some string cheese, also on point.
It’s a great store with lots to offer, but the apple pie thing really sucked or I would have happily given them 4 stars. If they had plopped a scoop of vanilla ice cream on my pie with a smile, well, they might have gotten 5.

I have been coming here since I was a child. I still come back every year and it used to be a family oriented store. They just aren’t as friendly as it used to be, and the store shelves are less full. They need to stop selling off their farmland so that there’s no more picking of vegetables or fruits.
Their high prices used to be justified by the experience when you came, but now it’s not worth it anymore.

Pumpkin bar is unprecedented. Cream cheese frosting and bar in perfect ratio. Good apple pie? Forgettaboutit!!! No competition. Even Bobby Flay knew after the first bite, he’s not worthy. The crust of pie, when first ever eaten, will give you psychedelic visions. I have never tasted pie crust like that. I usually hate the crust, but this crust outshines the damn filling. Just be careful not to eat the bag that gets stuck on crust edge.

Pricey, but everybody who is anybody knows that this is the place to get fresh cheese curds, fresh picked fruit, and of course, apple pie baked in a paper bag!
But, be prepared to spend $ 100 without even realizing it.
You can also make it a fun day trip, starting in east troy, take the trolley, and go to elegant farmer to pick apples or strawberries. Then, you can go eat some ice cream at lauber’s.

We went to The Elegant Farmer as our first ode to fall 2014, and were slightly disappointed.
We went on October 5^th, and were shocked to see signs stating that their trees had already been picked clean for the season! What? The leaves were JUST starting to change and it was a huge disappointment. You could still go out into the orchard and choose your apples out of bins they had laying around… but at that point why not just buy them from a bin in a grocery store for less money?
Everything was kind of an unorganized mess honestly. There were several parking areas, and no one knew anything. Once we were parked we crossed the road to the orchard area and stood in line for the hayride out to the field. Well after waiting in line there, we were told we needed to buy a basket to put the apples in, and that was a different line. We got out of the hayride line and into the first and waited. When we made it to the front there was the sign saying the trees were bare. We got out of line to go into the market instead (of note there was a THIRD line to pay for apples/​pie pumpkins). They did have about 30 pumpkins for sale… but they were all pretty rough looking.
Once back on the market side there was another line just to get into the store. That went quickly enough, and the store was set like a maze so that it was easy to see everything — high prices and all. There were a lot of snacky knick knacks like rainbow colored popcorn seeds and prepackaged soup mixes.
An issue especially was lack of staff. There were over a dozen kinds of apples, and no samples or descriptions. We wanted to make a pie and had no idea what kind of apples to buy — when we asked a staff member refilling apples she said she had no idea… maybe this one?
We picked up one of their famous pies, and after one muffin, a half gallon of cider, one pie and a small jar of spices we hit $ 30. Honestly it just didn’t tickle me as much as I’d hoped, and I am still on the lookout for an awesome orchard.