Amish eyes are smiling on the Higher West Facet.
Millport Dairy, the primary really genuine, Amish-owned brick-and-mortar retailer within the 5 boroughs, opened Could 1 on Broadway between 97th and 98th Streets.
The store’s managed by John Stoltzfoos — who stays convivial regardless of his nightmare of a commute.
Stoltzfoos, 58, an impressively-bearded Amish man who wears suspenders and a broad-brimmed hat, travels six hours a day each Wednesday by way of Saturday to get forwards and backwards between Manhattan and his household’s farm in Lititz, Pa.
Rising earlier than 3 a.m., Stoltzfoos depends on a employed driver — for the reason that Amish are prohibited from driving vehicles or working most fashionable know-how — to get him and a truckload of recent items safely to the Massive Apple.
The shop opens at 7 a.m. and closes at 4 p.m.
Nonetheless, Millport Dairy was closed on a latest Thursday, and dismayed clients arrived to discover a observe taped to the within of the door: “Gone Fishing.”
Stoltzfoos’ face must be acquainted to town’s greenmarket regulars.
He’s been promoting his household’s farm-to-city-to-table meats, dairy merchandise, baked items, and much-ballyhooed ethically natural eggs at New York Metropolis’s varied farmers’ markets for greater than 18 years.
However in January, Stoltzfoos vanished from the farmers’ market scene, a lot to the chagrin of his loyal clients.
Stoltzfoos mentioned GrowNYC’s guidelines and insurance policies had turn out to be overly restrictive, limiting the sorts of things he might promote, and so, along with the Lancaster County farm’s proprietor and his uncle, John King, he began searching for viable storefronts.
“With the farmers markets,” just like the one in Union Sq., the place he was a fixture, “sometimes you’d be setting up your canopy in the pouring rain, and then, there’s unloading your truck and later, loading everything back into it again,” defined Stoltzfoos. “Now, I just open and close the door.”
On a latest sunny afternoon, folks steadily wandered out and in of the store, a former dry cleaners.
Many — together with Diane Wan, 72 — instantly acknowledged Stoltzfoos, and left with all the things from pickled okra, pork roll, and asparagus to shoofly pies, pumpkin bread, and GMO-free duck and pullet eggs. “I’m so glad you’re here,” proclaimed Wan.
“They have the best eggs ever,” said Harriet Hoffman, 83, who lives close by. “I would never eat eggs from the supermarket again. The quality is really what I come here for.”
The Pennsylvania dairy, which is solely horse-powered, can be recognized for its butter and cheeses, together with Colby, parmesan, and horseradish.
Stoltzfoos wouldn’t touch upon how a lot Millport Farm is paying to lease the area, however mentioned he hopes to maintain the store working “for the next 10 years — maybe 20, God willing.”
He additionally wouldn’t disclose his driver’s wage.
“We get the entire family involved, even the children,” Stoltzfoos mentioned, including what they be taught engaged on the farm “is an education for them.” The women on the farm, he mentioned, make the baked items, together with oat meal bars, ginger cookies, and zucchini bread, “with love and care.”
The shop additionally carries strawberries, yogurt, smoked pork chops, kielbasa, and even chorizo.
“Well,” Stoltzfoos mentioned with a smile, “the Amish like a little spice, too.”
