An update to the story of last week on Amish producing 13,000 homemade masks for medical institutions. The news today is the Amish and others involved are scaling up their production to reach more recipient organizations. From Lancaster Online: At first, the goal was to sew 13,000 masks for health providers and patients at Lancaster Health Center to protect against COVID-19. Now, Sylvan Stoltzfus and…
Walking into the auction with the day growing long and things winding down, I knew exactly what I was looking for. When I spotted a stand with baked goods, I beelined over. The stand owner had set up under the porch of one of the farmhouses on the auction property, there in the Ethridge, Tennessee Amish community. I went right to scanning the plentiful items…
Wednesday doughnuts have been canceled for now. But the Community Market in the Amish community at Unity, Maine remains open. Bangor Daily News visited owner Lewis Brenneman’s store to give us a look at how the Amish market is operating during this time of coronavirus. Traffic to the store is down, Brenneman says, but sales have remained steady – probably due to people stocking up…
New York Upstate lists the 12 destinations, which I call “food outlets” because they are not all traditional shops and markets, though some are. Several are multi-vendor markets. Most of these are Mennonite-owned or “Amishy“, but there are at least two Amish-owned markets on the list – Troyer’s General Store, and Weaver’s Farm Market. Many advertise Amish-made or Amish-style products. Here’s the write-up for Troyer’s…
Good news for those who wish to see this northern Indiana tourist institution continue: Amish Acres will live on, in somewhat different form, under new ownership. The people who purchased the key parcels of property will continue the venue as a food and entertainment destination. However they are re-branding the attraction under a different name: “The Barns at Nappanee“. I have to admit I didn’t…
This is not what they call getting off on the right foot. An Amish business in LaGrange County, Indiana caught fire yesterday and burned down on its very first day of operation. And it was not a small shop. From WSBT: “It was fully involved two-thirds of the way down,” said Huffman. “This building is approximately 200 feet long by about 90 feet wide. And…
I always tell people that if you are new in an Amish community, and want to meet the locals, the best thing to do is to visit their businesses. Larger communities like Lancaster County and Holmes County have significantly more Amish businesses. But they’re not as densely located or convenient to visit as in Ethridge, Tennessee‘s community of 11 church districts. It seems every other…
Amish Acres was portioned off and sold at auction yesterday in separate parcels after the owners tried and failed to find a buyer for the entire property. One set of buyers purchased the “entertainment center” containing the famous Round Barn Theatre, restaurant, and other buildings. Another tract containing the hotel was sold to a different buyer. So it looks like there is a chance that…
Yesterday while traveling on I-81 through Tennessee I stopped in at Yoder’s Country Market (Bulls Gap, TN). This is in the eastern end of the state, the part which juts out between Virginia and North Carolina. This is one of the nicest PA Dutch-style stores I’ve come across. I call it “Amishy” because it has a very Amish feel, selling the types of things you’d…
Signs for Mattie’s Place are one of the first things cluing you in as you approach Burke’s Garden, Virginia. For about eight years now, this picturesque valley has been the site of one of the more uniquely-located Amish settlements in North America. Photo by zeesstoff/flickr “Mattie” is Mattie Schlabach. She runs one of the handful of retail businesses in the valley, a popular general store…