Shields Date Garden — Attraction in Indio

We were really excited to have lunch at the cafe today. We'd spotted this place last year, but didn't feel comfortable eating at a restaurant during that stage of the pandemic so we visited their gift shop and enjoyed walking around their garden. We called before we came to find out if we needed reservations, and were told they were not very busy and would easily be able to accomodate our party of 6. We were quickly seated and they provided our kids with paper menus that had activities and crayons.

Unfortunately things went downhill from there. Eventually we realized there was a QR code on the table we were supposed to scan to get the menu. After sitting and waiting for 20 minutes we had not gotten water, a waiter had not come to our table, and we'd watched 3 tables near us be sat, get water, and had their order taken, a member of our party got up to let the hostess know we hadn't had anyone come by yet. 10 minutes later someone came by and brought us water and told us our waiter would be with us shortly. After sitting there for 45 minutes, our waitress finally showed up and took our order. The drinks came shortly after and our food arrived almost an hour after we had sat down.

Generally I would not post a review about this- they were busy, lots of people arrived at the same time. It happens. Unfortunately it was also freezing and the only seating they had was outside. They had many patio heaters that were not turned on. It started raining a few minutes after our food arrived, and we jumped up and raised the umbrellas around our table, and realizing others were struggling and none of the waitstaff was around to be helpful, we helped other tables get umbrellas set up as well. The food was mediocre- I had chicken and waffles, the chicken was good but the waffles tasted like krusteaz. The salads 2 other members of our party had were over dressed and lackluster.

A member of our party asked to talk to the manager about our experience of waiting and unfortunately we recieved a very unsatisfactory response. "We were busy" is never a reason to sit a group of people and ignore them while serving the tables around them for 45 minutes. We then had to wait even longer for the server to show up so we could pay the check- all in all spending 2 freezing rainy hours here.

Perhaps if you took the time to focus on making dining at your place a pleasurable experience you would be able to hire more waitstaff and update the abysmal bathrooms.

We will...

💔💔💔 I've been coming to Shields Date Gardens since 1967 as a kid with my folks. We have vacationed and owned property from Palm Springs, to Indio. Shields Date Shakes were a MUST HAVE every time we came out for the weekend or our usual vacations. Standing in line, at the long white counter, watching all of the hand dipped vanilla ice cream, moist reconstituted magical 'date crystals' and ice cold milk, and into the old multi bladed Hamilton Beach mixers spinning away... anticipation building, when that thick delicious Shields date shake appears in front of you.

It's gone.

If memory serves me correctly I believe Shields date shakes were $1.25 in 1967. Over the years the price continued to climb due to inflation cost of goods etc. I remember my dad ordering 10 date shakes and he and I each had a date shake at Shields while the other eight were being packed in an old ice cream container surrounded by ice for the trip back to a home we had in Rancho Mirage. Incredible treats and incredible memories.

It's now a 7 hour drive and it has been 2 years since we've been able to make it back to our favorite hot spot. After loading up on groceries getting the house settled I made my trip with my son into Shields for our beloved date shake. I paid for two $7.95 shakes... Inflation but I'm willing to pay for the most incredible shake in the world.

After paying for my shakes a gentleman came out of the back and the person at the cash register told him two shakes just as normal and he proceeded to walk over to a Taylor soft serve machine and filled two shake cups up to within an inch of the top, put caps on them and handed them to me. I said, 'you no longer hand dip?' he said no.

You can get a date shake at probably 999 locations throughout the desert floor. They all taste the same. You can now find them in a thousand places on the desert floor because the unique fibrous date shake of shields is no more.

You can buy the date crystals and make the shake ALMOST the same at home, but without 115 degrees, it's just not the same.

Times change. Best of luck Shields. I will...

This place is quite honestly, super weird. You expect to go see a date garden, but instead you are immersed into the world of Jesus Christ our lord and savior, whether you were expecting it or not. The garden may have more statues with bible verses than it does date trees. We went at a horrible time, as it was over 100 degrees out and there were hardly any dates on the trees, only two trees had unripe dates on them.

The walk itself is relatively decent, if it were a nice temp out it might be enjoyable. Being overly inundated with near religious propaganda was unfortunate though. They should really disclose ahead of time that the date garden tour is a religious date garden tour. My wife and I weren’t really phased since it was free, but if we had paid the rating of this place would be a lot lower.

Also, when going into the store to look around, there were a lot of great date options. However, the workers seemed to have no idea about anything related to dates. When asking simply questions. Like which variety was used with this coconut kind vs pecan mix, they had literally no idea. I would assume if you sell yourself as a date farm you’d have at least one knowledgeable employee rather than staffing your building with exclusively high school kids that you have not educated on your products. Despite the really odd garden walk and ignorant employees in terms of the date manufacturing, it was still worth experiencing, especially because it does not have to cost anything at all (at least when we went).

The date platter we bought is tasty, especially the pecan mix. It’s a little expensive, but not awful considering they are...