What: A farm and restaurant.
Where: 701 N.E. 112th Ave., Vancouver.
Hours: The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Fridays and 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The farm is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays.
On the Web: www.joesplacefarms.com
A picture of a little Lauren Shumaker as a child asleep in her grandfather’s lap hangs in the newly renovated restaurant at Joe’s Place Farms, a farm within the city limits of Vancouver.
The walls of The Farm Kitchen and Taproom are filled with memorabilia that tell a story of long tradition, family and farming. Adjacent to the small dining room is the produce store, filled with seasonal vegetables and fruit — from cherries and peaches to cucumbers, onions and corn — grown right there on the farm. A large chalkboard next to the small kitchen lists the day’s menu over four taps that rotate local beers and ciders.
This mix of tradition with a modern taproom twist is Shumaker’s way of bringing new clients to the longtime community staple while honoring the reliable customers who have come to weekly brunch or bought boxes of produce for years.
What: A farm and restaurant.
Where: 701 N.E. 112th Ave., Vancouver.
Hours: The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Fridays and 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The farm is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays.
On the Web: <a href="http://www.joesplacefarms.com/">www.joesplacefarms.com</a>
“We’re trying to find ways we can keep a presence in the community and make sure there’s still a piece of nature for people to come and enjoy,” Shumaker, who manages the restaurant, said.
In addition to adding beer and wine, the restaurant has expanded its hours from just Saturday brunch to Fridays for lunch and dinner and Saturdays and Sundays for brunch and dinner.
Amid the dining and drinking, the farm continues to produce crops that change with the seasons. This week, it’s blueberries and Marionberries, as well as freshly picked peaches and Lodi apples. Gravensteins will be ripe soon, and the farm is preparing to offer U-pick peaches when the fruit hits its peak.
Charles Brun, horticulture adviser for Washington State University Clark County Extension, said Joe’s Place is unique in that it not only grows the food but processes it and sells it straight to the customer.
“It is everything we like in not having to see transport of food from California,” he said.
Farming in the city
Joe’s Place Farms started in the 1970s with Joe Beaudoin selling a modest amount of produce from his Vancouver home. The community loved his vegetables and fruit and wanted more, so Beaudoin quit his 20-year career as a buyer for a furniture retailer to grow what is now a large inner-city farm. While the farm’s most visible presence is on Northeast 112th Avenue, Beaudoin farms some nearby scattered sites, including 27 acres below the Bonneville Power Administration’s transmission lines, for a total of 80 acres.
Much has changed since Beaudoin first cultivated his love for farming when he planted his first garden on his father’s land at age 4. Part of the farm is threatened by the area’s urbanization. Agricultural workers are getting harder to find, and customers willing to come to the farm to buy or pick produce are dying. A big concern this year is a long, dry growing season.
“For the independent (farmer), it’s scary,” Beaudoin said. “I don’t know how long it’s going to be, but pretty much all of us doing what we are doing are going to be doomed by labor, unavailability of land and the biggest thing — unavailability of water,” Beaudoin said.
Urbanization is not only surrounding the farm; it’s cutting right into it. A planned widening of Northeast 18th Street to Evergreen High School could take out a good chunk of the farm’s peach trees on some of the 42 acres that Beaudoin farms in that area. The 18th Street widening will shorten the farm’s water line and limit access to the property and its -pick parking.
“I guess a lot of it is dependent on how we’re going to survive the widening of 18th Street here,” Beaudoin said. “That’s going to be a very difficult situation here.”
A little frustrated by the changing environment around him, Beaudoin said farming in the city is growing more challenging as the urban growth continues around him. He has 13 tractors that drive down the road from field to field, and drivers aren’t as courteous as they used to be, he said.
“That’s getting scarier and scarier with the traffic,” he said.
How long the urban farm will keep going remains to be seen.
“I’m not getting any younger,” said Beaudoin, who is 75. “It’s harder every year. It’s what I like to do. I don’t know what I’d do if we were to close it up.”
The next step
Joe’s Place has no shortage of community support.
Shumaker, recognizing the farm’s potential to tap its increasingly urban location, says she is more optimistic about the future than her grandfather. Once she can get the restaurant going, she said she hopes to start planning for more events on the farm to keep the community engaged, in addition to the beloved hay rides and corn maze that Joe’s place offers seasonally.
Shumaker, 28, said she is hopeful her work in the restaurant, which also includes live music on Friday nights, will bring in a younger crowd eager for local food and entertainment.
Beaudoin, who says that Shumaker is the only grandchild to have shown interest in working on the farm, is leaving restaurant operations up to her.
“That’s her project,” he said, noting she is also experimenting with hops they are growing along the driveway.
Shumaker said she hopes to attract new customers while holding onto the regulars who have kept the place humming for years.
“People just love coming to his place and buying apples and berries and pumpkins and Christmas trees and firewood,” Brun, the WSU extension horticulture adviser, said.
Craig Hamer, 62, of Vancouver is one of those fans. He said he tries to make it to brunch every Saturday and is excited about the recent expansion of restaurant hours.
“I walk in, and they know almost exactly what I’m going to order,” he said. “I think it’s very important to hold on to it. There are so few places like Joe’s. It brings a special quality to Vancouver that I haven’t seen other places.”
Brun said the fact that some of the Beaudoin’s farmland sits under Bonneville Power lines could be the key to the farm’s survival in the urban environment.
“I still think it’s a good news story in that it will survive into perpetuity,” Brun said. “Theoretically, it (the land under the power lines) can never be developed.”
But the restaurant on 112th Avenue and a portion of the farm, which is just north of Southeast Mill Plain Boulevard and Chkalov Drive, is not under the power lines.
“There are all sorts of different entities that would love to have that property,” Brun said.
Brun said the best way to keep the farm alive is through community support.
“The way to do that is to go once a week to Joe’s Place and get all that fresh-at-the-farm material,” he said.
