Riamede Farm — Attraction in Chester Township

$2.25 a pound for pick your own. A lot of the apples are not labeled correctly. They charge $2 for admission to get in. For the most part the staff is not terribly friendly either. Items in their store are also rather expensive. They sell things like jams and some fresh produce

The original post above is from 10/11/17 regarding a visit to Riamede farm on 10/7/17. The owner posted a response to my review today (9/20/18):

"This post is a bit odd as we were not open 17 weeks ago, it was still late spring, long before apples are ripe. Also, we do not sell fresh produce in our market, only apples and cucurbita. Has Ms. B confused Riamede with another farm in Chester? At this writing our price per pound is $1.99 noting that our pricing changes throughout the season as the supply of apples ebbs and flows."

Here are more details from my visit to Riamede that day (10/7/17):

I went with a group of friends for the 3rd year in a row. I'm starting to ask myself why I go aside from the social aspects.

Admission is $2 per person. Bring your own bags or purchase a plastic bag from them. I can't remember the price - either 25 or 50 cents per bag. Wear shoes good for walking on uneven ground.

They will have a sign with what's ripe that day so bring your digital camera or smart phone and take a picture of the sign because they do not offer paper copies. Same goes for the map of the farm which tells you where to find each variety.

We picked apples for $2.25 per pound. A sign stated that pumpkins are 64 cents per pound. They also sell 3 hot apple cider donuts for $4 in a plastic bag. (For those of you who are concerned about plastic contamination in food, do NOT buy these.) You can also buy a variety of jams, fruit butters, fall decorations, etc

FYI - 2-3 small to medium apples are about 1 pound. The really big apples can be about 3/4 pound each..

Pros: Apples are tasty and very crisp. There is a good variety They supply free wagons for toting what you've picked. Remember that this makes it easy to pick a lot more than you intended. They have nice sunflowers to cut. I don't know how much they are but I believe someone said you pay "per flower" and not "per stem." Please ask before you cut because I am not sure about the pricing.

Cons: Cash or Check ONLY. They have an ATM - I did not check out the fees. (Riamede has since told me it's $1.75) I paid $2.25 per pound for apples but I've since been told that they charge $1.99 per pound on weekdays but jack up the prices on weekends and holidays. Maybe that is because they don't offer their "hayride" on weekdays. I wanted to find Empire apples. The sign at the entrance said to look for trees with blue and white stripes but when I walked up into the orchard, there were signs indicating Empire apples were on trees with a yellow stripe. I suggest you taste the apples to be sure you are picking what you actually want. I have no idea what I picked, but they were NOT Empires. I had a few questions for the people at the information booth but they were neither friendly nor helpful. Don't try calling for information. Their answering machine has a very long message that is not helpful and then it hangs up on you. You will never get a human on the phone.

You can view the entire conversation on Yelp. Despite all of the issues I encountered, I still gave...

Unfortunately I have to give at least 1 star but I wish I could give none. Earlier today I went to this farm with my family, only because the orchard we originally planned on going to was closed and boy was that a mistake!!! We went there to take family photos, pick some apples and buy some donuts and pies, but instead was treated rudely and left with a terrible experience. It started when me and my girlfriend walked in and asked for a bathroom, the woman in the shop had just greeted 2 people with a smile and a “how are you today?” but when turned to me, immediately changed to an emotionless face and I was greeted with “do you need something?” Now I normally I hate playing the race card because it is often not nessecary, but when the two people before me that were greeted were white (like the shop attendant) and I am noticeably Latino, I can’t help but to feel that way, but I let it go because I was there for a family outing and I don’t like to give a voice or a platform to racist bigots. But it did not stop there, as we were leaving my brother and his pregnant fiancé ordered donuts and paid up front, the lady returned several minutes later and gave donuts to everyone else there (who did not pay in advance) except my brother and when they asked about theirs she responded rudely “you can wait another 3 minutes.” My brother simply asked for a refund because he was disgusted with the service. My father then went inside to ask for a manager to which she refused to get one and also refused to supply her name, and when told that she was nasty and disrespectful her response was “then go to another farm a couple miles down the road next time.” We were also not the only ones treated as such, another man told us that he went to buy 4 pies and when he noticed how rude she was to his wife (who was also Latino, he was not) he also refused to buy anything as well, and sadly enough to make matters worse and more on the racist side, a white family of 5 received donuts while this conversation was going on and there still weren’t any extra for my brothers would’ve been order. This lady was terrible and was only concerned with our “group leader” and the fact that we didn’t get “a lot of apples equal to our group size” which is funny because there was no postings signifying how many apples should be picked per specific group size, even though we bought 10 bags @ $2/ea. And tried to buy donuts and pies. Sadly reading the reviews, discrimination here seems to be a regular occurrence as the manager has replied to several bad reviews with poor, rude, misguided and nasty comments that include making fun of a handicap, a service dog and a foreigner. I would highly advise that nobody give this place business, whether you are part of a minority group or the majority because people like this have no place in society and their businesses should not thrive. I also urge the owner not to display another poor example of how to treat a customer by replying to this with rude comments without knowing the full story of what took place, but instead reply with a time he would be available to speak about my experience and be open minded to having a conversation whether it be over the phone or in person so nothing is...

This is a reasonably priced place to pick apples. $1 per person over the age of 7 is a lot better than buying a seasonal membership, since it doesn't commit you to having to come back to feel like you got your money's worth. Cash money at this farm as credit cards aren't accepted but they have an ATM that charges $1.75. There is a free hayride that goes around the farm which you can catch a ride on if you want to go to the more remote areas. They also have free wagons to haul your pickings, but there weren't any available when we got there. The fresh doughnuts are really good.

If you have children in the 4-8 range, you might want to go somewhere where the trees aren't so far apart. I was there today with my two young children and the temperature was in the high 80's. It was difficult to find any apples at child-height unless you walked up the hill. We did and after about 35 minutes, my 4 year old was tired and very hot, so we found some shade to sit down for her to cool off and drink some water. A minute later someone driving a mini-tractor came by and asked us if we are picnicking, because that's not allowed, and I said no we're not my daughters are overheated and tired and need a break. He was obviously doing his job trying to get us to move, but we couldn't. I am not able to carry two kids and two bags of apples. He said if people see us sitting down then they too will sit down and that would be bad. I don't know why sitting down for 5 minutes would rise to the level of 'bad', unless he thought hidden in our apple bags was a well-concealed picnic spread (we had no other bags than the apple bags!) and we'd invite all and sundry to join us. So keep moving, kids, and whatever you do, do not SIT!

The only other farm we've gone to for apple picking is Wightmans, which is bigger, far pricier, and is crowded with long lines, but there I have not had any employee try to get us to move. If I were to compare crowds and lines, I would have to say both places are the same relative to their sizes: the wait in line to pay for apples will take about the same amount of time in both places, as will the hike to your car. As customers who vote with their feet, hot tired ones in this case, my kids were...