By
Kimberly Warren
Managing Editor
What started as
one family’s wholesale vegetable business has become a retail
fruit and agribusiness operation in southern Indiana.
The Huber family has been farming much of the same land since 1926.
And though the face of the farm has changed, the heart has stayed
the same.
“I learned from my dad that if you keep a smile on a child’s
face, and you look up at Mom, Dad, Grandpa, they’ll be smilin’
too,” said Joe Huber III. “Our motto is ‘let our
family show your family a good time.’”
The family built its first farm market in 1967 as an outlet for selling
their vegetables. Because their farm is only 20 miles north of Louisville,
Ky., it made it hard to compete on the wholesale end. And land pressure
was increasing, making it difficult to afford to farm. So the Hubers
decided they needed something different. And it was that farm market.
“We came up with the u-pick business, but then (people) stopped
cooking,” Huber said. “We found out that people would
pay for entertainment.”
And today that entertainment venture has paid off – Joe Huber
Family Farm and Restaurant was ranked the No. 5 tourist attraction
in the Louisville market last year.
“We had a little over half a million visitors,” Huber
said.
As large as the business has become, it remains a family business.
Joe has two brothers and two sisters who are involved in different
aspects of the farm. Joe’s son works on the farm as well.
“People ask us all the time ‘how do you all get along?’”
Huber said. “I think it’s because we don’t see each
other very much. Nobody’s stepping on anybody’s toes.”
In all, the farm spans 300 acres – plenty of room for the family
to spread out.
Joe’s sister Kim runs the farm’s restaurant, which Joe
said may well have been the farm’s savior.
Built in 1983, the restaurant features down-home cooking’. On
the menu are fried chicken, catfish, white fish, mashed potatoes and
gravy, dumplings and a variety of fruit cobblers. On Mother’s
Day weekend alone this year, they served more than 6,000 dinners.
Along with the farm market and the restaurant, the farm also has two
buildings, which the Hubers have called the Barnyard Bash buildings.
They rent out these buildings for events such as weddings, corporate
picnics, anniversaries, general outings and any number of other events.
“If you want to have an employee party here, we serve the full
dinner buffet style,” Huber said. “We take care of everything
– we have concrete basketball courts, volleyball courts, a Billy
goat walk. Basically, you’ve got the building for the day.”
A one-day event, which Huber said lasts anywhere from five to six
hours, costs $22.95 per person. That includes set-up, decorations,
food and everything that goes with it.
The farm also has a variety of different festivals, which encourage
people to come out and visit. Among these are a day lily festival,
jubilee shows, gospel shows and other seasonal events.
The number one thing that has kept the farm going and has remained
the focus for the Hubers is children.
“We cater to children,” Huber said.
Though the wave of family outings to farms and agritourism is just
picking up speed, Huber said he grew up in agritourism – his
family’s been doing it for 25 years.
“I’ll never forget when my dad started the u-pick operation
and people told him he was crazy: ‘no one’s going to pay
you to work,’” Huber said.
Within in a couple of years, Huber said there were u-pick operations
popping up all around the Hubers.
The same thing happened when he Hubers decided to build their now
very successful on-farm restaurant. The farm, Huber said, is basically
in the middle of nowhere.
“The local farmers just said ‘oh, you’re building
a new machinery shed,’” he said. “Even the people
from Purdue said ‘haven’t you ever heard location, location,
location.’
“But it’s all about marketing, anyway. A bad location
into an awesome location – that’s what we’ve done.”
