Farm & Table

Built on Tradition

Orchard Bar + Table draws inspiration from Catawba Island’s farming heritage and is part of a 10-acre property that offers more than what’s on the menu.

METTE BLUMENSAADT Cool Creation: With locations in Tuscarawas and Holmes counties, Miller’s Creamery offers eight fun flavors of ice cream nachos. Henmick Farm & Brewery: Founder Nick Sheets remade a property that had been in his family for more than a century as a welcoming, rural destination for craft beer fans.

Orchard Bar + Table’s whipped feta cheese and hot honey appetizer

Nestled in an apple and peach orchard and bordered by a vineyard, Orchard Bar + Table offers an elegant atmosphere, where special touches from the property are incorporated into the experience. Diners sip peach margaritas made with Hot Catawba Peach Jelly (sold at the on-site farm stand) and mojitos are crafted with mint grown at the 10-acre property, known collectively as the Orchard.

When the food arrives, the whipped feta cheese and hot honey appetizer features honey harvested from hives that rest a few hundred feet from the restaurant, while the seasonal preparation of cherry demi-glace on the filet mignon is created using the farm stand’s cherry jam.

“All the flavors of the Orchard can complement your dish,” says Nikolai Blumensaadt, who co-owns the business with his family. “We’re not trying to overcomplicate anything.”

When the family opened the restaurant in 2014, they aimed to offer a farm-to-table experience inspired by the historic orchards of Catawba Island, a peninsula that juts into Lake Erie east of Port Clinton.

“The fruit trees and vineyards have been in the area for generations,” says Blumensaadt, whose great-grandparents emigrated from Germany to work in the vineyards on nearby South Bass Island. “The natural beauty speaks for itself.”

Then, as restaurants were forced to close their doors to dine-in customers in 2020, the family opened its Orchard Farm Stand and began selling jams, candles and hand soaps made with ingredients grown on the property when available. In 2021, the Farm Stand Cafe opened, offering coffees, like its signature Henny B’s Honey Lavender Latte, applewood-fired pizzas and sandwiches.

The restaurant uses as much from the property’s gardens and orchard as possible and buys other ingredients from farms throughout the region. The menu changes every two to three months, based on the availability of seasonal produce, and it routinely features a dozen appetizers and a dozen entrees that span a variety of meat and seafood dishes.

Diners are also treated to the changing of the seasons at the Orchard — from the blooming lavender garden in late spring to the apple and peach harvest in early fall — and Blumensaadt says he most enjoys seeing the happiness and relaxation on the faces of those who visit.

“We don’t have customers. We have guests,” he adds. “We welcome everyone in.” — Kristina Smith

Hot Catawba Peach Margarita

Bar + Table: 3266 NE Catawba Rd., Port Clinton 43452, 419/797-7324; Farm Stand: 3350 Catawba Rd., Port Clinton 43452, 419/573-6003, orchardoncatawba.com

With locations in Tuscarawas and Holmes counties, Miller’s Creamery offers eight fun flavors of ice cream nachos.

If these three words don’t inspire a summer road trip, they’ll at least pique your curiosity: ice cream nachos. Miller’s Creamery, which has shops in Dover and Millersburg as well as a seasonal trailer in New Philadelphia, unveiled the offering earlier this year while the snow was still flying, and it quickly became a customer favorite.

“We launched them the weekend of Valentine’s Day in February,” says manager Mandi Miller. “They were a huge hit, and I actually sold out of nachos by like 7 p.m. on Saturday.”

For those imagining the traditional pile of chips, cheese and sour cream, Miller’s Creamery’s ice cream nachos are presented in more of a ballpark style, with a container of “chips” (flat and round, sugar-cone-like wafers perfect for dipping) served next to a mound of soft-serve ice cream dressed up in one of eight deliciously inventive ways, from chocolate chip cookie dough to strawberry cheesecake. There is also the option to design your own creation by choosing from the shop’s lineup of toppings, but Miller says about 95 percent of customers go with one of their combinations.

Aside from ice cream nachos, Miller’s Creamery is also known for its soft-serve sherbet and hand-dipped ice cream (16 flavors are always available). If you can’t settle on just one, you don’t have to choose. The shop’s ice cream flights let customers order scoops of five different flavors. — Jim Vickers

For information about Miller’s Creamery locations, visit millerscreamery.com.

Henmick Farm & Brewery

Founder Nick Sheets remade a property that had been in his family for more than a century as a welcoming, rural destination for craft beer fans.

It’s easy to see Henmick Farm & Brewery’s appeal, with its white barn buildings and wide, grassy patios on a property that has been in Nick Sheets’ family for more than a century. The place was an instant hit when it opened in July 2021, with eager crowds, ranging from beer connoisseurs to families looking for an afternoon outing, visiting to see the place.

Sheets’ family stopped actively farming on the Delaware County property when he was a high school freshman and leased out the acreage to another farmer. As he grew older though, Sheets felt himself drawn back to the land.

“When I was younger, I wanted to go out and do things,” he says. “The last place I wanted to be was back on the farm. Now it’s the only place I want to be.”

Following his father’s death, Sheets approached his siblings and his aunt in 2018 about trying something different with the property. He focused on an 8-acre plot that his father had cultivated as a horse farm and drew inspiration from rural craft breweries he had discovered during his travels through New England, as well as trips with his wife to California wine country. In 2020, he quit his job to focus solely on the brewery.

Sheets describes Henmick Farm & Brewery’s vibe as “upscale country.” The main building is fashioned out of a refurbished 1860 barn from Lancaster, while the adjoining taproom and brewing facility incorporate wood salvaged from other Ohio barns. Expansive stone and grass patios with fire pits and picnic tables offer spaces to sit outside, and local food trucks are always there.

Head brewer Zack Cline, who previously worked at Lancaster’s Rockmill Brewery, crafts a diverse portfolio of beers, ranging from European lagers and wheats to stouts and porters to traditional and hazy IPAs.

“He’s nailed everything we’ve been putting out,” Sheets says. “We can appeal to any type of beer drinker.”

Many of the brewery’s ingredients, including most of its malts, come from suppliers that buy from Ohio farmers, and Sheets says visitors have warmly embraced the rural atmosphere.

“In the Midwest, everyone has a connection to a farm,” he says. “We want it to feel like you’re just visiting the farm for the day.” — Nicholas Dekker

4380 N. Old State Rd., Delaware 43015, henmick.com