Cornwall's Sunrise Orchards has been a staple of Addison County's apple country for 50 years. Now, the orchard at 1287 North Bingham Street has a permanent farmstand from which to sell its fruit, local gifts, housemade pastries and cider doughnuts.
The farmstand in a renovated circa-1890 carriage barn opened for the season along with the orchard on August 17. It will be open daily through November 2, serving cinnamon-sugar cider doughnuts, apple turnovers, chocolate chip cookies, coffee, tea and hot cider.
Thursday through Sunday, the bakery adds full pies and a savory option such as apple-rosemary focaccia. Surprise items might include chocolate-glazed cider doughnuts or cinnamon-cider twists, co-owner Christiana Hodges said. On weekends, the menu will expand further to include grab-and-go lunches such as ham-and-apple sandwiches on herb focaccia rolls, pulled pork with apple slaw, or butternut squash-and-apple soup.
"Every lunch has an apple in it," Hodges said. "Or cider. Or both."
The orchard was originally planted as a wholesale operation, growing fruit for cidermakers and local stores, but it has run a retail store in a seasonal tent since Hodges and her husband, Barney, added pick-your-own as a pandemic adaptation in 2021.
"We're so far off the beaten path that we were reluctant to try it, so we started kind of basic to see what happened," Hodges said.
Support from a 2023 Working Lands Enterprise Initiative grant helped the Hodgeses scale up from their tent and funded an on-site commercial cidery. In March, the barn was deconstructed into 15 pieces and moved to the property from Otter Creek Child Center in Middlebury, which owned it previously. It was then reassembled over the summer.
The farmstand has easy access to 14 varieties of apples for customers to pick, Hodges said, and the trees are loaded this season. Customers can eat at tables on the farmstand's wooden deck or on the lawn, then play a round of cornhole or walk the orchard's three sculpture-filled paths in what she called "10-minute hikes."
Sunrise will host live music on several weekends this fall, and details of its upcoming 50th birthday party will be announced soon.