Town Called Orrville

We took advantage of CJ's visit to quench our curiosity about Orrville, a town I've seen in commercials since I was a kid. I'm talking about those cute Smucker's commercials.

Motto

Orrville is only an hour away, so the drive wasn't as long as I expected. The highway near the town is mostly lined with fields of densely packed cornstalks and a smaller, dark green leafy plant that stands 3-4' tall.

The store grounds was surrounded by a lawn thick with green grass and tall trees along the perimeter. It felt peaceful, where one would imagine someone sitting outside in a wooden chair sipping iced tea from a jar...until you open the double doors.

Ooh

Toward the back of the store is their museum. It was interesting to see how the small company grew to a mega corporation in just over 100 years, with Pillsbury, Crisco, and JIF under its name.

Museum entrance

Of course, where there's a cafe, you'll see us checking out the offerings. The most unusual item on the menu, at least for me, was the apple butter shake ($3.59). I wasn't raised on apple butter. As I am writing this, I am having my first taste of apple butter (apples, cider, sugar) spread on bread. Tart and sweet. With it being called butter, I didn't expect it to be so spreadable.

Apple butter shake - yummy!

Tan colored shake, wee. I realize the picture wasn't really worth taking because it looks boring. Now that I have had apple butter, the shake tasted nothing like it. It tasted like what I'd imagine malt (Horlick's) and soy milk blended into a shake would be like, and add a subtle tartness. It was good, but Bug could not guess the flavor prior to the reveal.

Mandarin orange cheesecake - in the tummy!

Part of the reason may have been the bold mandarin orange cheesecake with orange rind. It tasted a lot better than it looks, which I realize isn't saying much.

After we finished up our snack, we headed over to the shop in hopes of finding unusual items.

Jarhead

We walked away with some jarred Dickinson's ketchup, mayonnaise, and dijon mustard for my coworkers, as well as pumpkin spice ice cream topping for Bug's grandmother, sugar-free jam for his mother. Whole pecan topping ($2.69), Kadota fig jam ($3.19), blueberry jam ($2.09), apple butter ($1.59), guava jelly ($2.19), and orange marmalade ($2.09) have found a home in our refrigerator.

Orange marmalade? Dude, it was $2 and we love marmalade.

Auf wiedersehen

Was it worth the 1 hour drive? It was a nice break away from the city. I wish there was more to do out here, perhaps a factory tour of some kind. We'll be back before the holiday season, I'm sure.

Town Called Malice by The Jam

- Cassaendra

Smucker's Store and Cafe
333 Wadsworth Road
Orrville, OH 44667

Open: Mon-Sat, 9:00am - 6:00pm
Closed: Sunday