Apple Valley Country Store — Restaurant in Hood River

Well... it's definitely an old (HEAVY emphasis on old) country store. It's dark, dingy and... as mentioned previously... old.

Let's start with the good : if you're looking for homemade jams/jellies, salsa, mustard, chutney, salad dressing and other concoctions I can't remember because there's so friggin many, this is the place. They also offer homemade frozen pies and they make good Marionberry milkshakes too. The girls that helped us were friendly, but looked exhausted from the heat.

The bad: it was hotter than hot (even with a fan) in the building and I felt terrible for the two young girls working in the stifling hot. They offer ice cream, but out of the eight flavors listed on the ice cream cart, there were only three. Also, when the only girls working had to go in the back to make milkshakes, there wasn't anyone manning the register, so people had to wait in the VERY hot heat to pay.

Those are my gripes and praises. It's worth a stop if it's a cool day and you're on the Fruit Loop. There are other country stores I prefer over Apple...

I expected better from a "country store" where pies are homemade, but the baker here is using some unhealthy and artificial ingredients in their pies. In their crust they use partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oils. These are trans fats--considered to be the worst type of fat. Trans fat both raises your "bad" (LDL) cholesterol and lowers your "good" (HDL) cholesterol. Then there is the "artificial butter flavor." What? How is this even necessary when the pies already contain real butter? I wanted to support this small local business, but their pies contain some of the same low quality ingredients found in mass produced pies sold at Safeway. Apple Valley pies aren't worth the drive...

We arrived here at about 9:20 in the morning and were the only people there. There were 5 of us. I saw at least 4 different ladies who seemed to work there and passed us multiple times and not a single one spoke to us. So I thought that was kind of rude. I was also disappointed in the food. Internet reviews and menus made me think there would be scones and muffins and lots of options. There were only a couple of cookies and a turnover. I had planned to feed us pastries for breakfast so we left hungry. We stood there for a few minutes to buy a cookie and no one noticed us so...