West Bend, WI – The grand opening for the new Farm Store at Schmidt Century Farm, 5485 St. Anthony Road, is February 27, 28, and March 1.
Over the past year the Schmidt family has been working to expand their business and better serve the community.
Below is a sneak peek when the building was under construction. It has come so far, with a lot of hard work and painting, and will open at the end of February 2025.
Stop in Thursday, Friday, or Saturday and check out the progress.
West Bend, Wi – The new Farm Store at Schmidt Century Farm, 5485 St. Anthony Road, is nearly complete. Owner Deanna Schmidt guided a recent tour for a sneak peek inside.
The new Farm Store features a huge shopping area, a state-of-the-art commercial kitchen, heated tractor maintenance shop, and a large meeting space.
The radiant in-floor heat is up and running in the new Farm Store building. One more inspection and drywall will start with an announcement on a grand opening in the coming weeks.
Below is an article from 2024 about plans to add a new Farm Store at Schmidt Century Farm.
“I wanted to start a farm store since 2018,” said Deanna Schmidt. “In the beginning customers would come to the farm to pay for their large beef and pork purchases. We didn’t know many of them beyond the phone call and check drop off.
“Sometimes, checks would be mailed, and we would just never meet with the customer face to face.”
To better interact with people and educate them the Schmidts started going to Farmers Markets. In 2019, the family hosted its first farm open house.
“That really worked well,” said Deanna. “We got to meet our customers, and they were able to get a farm experience and learn where their food comes from.”
Over the years as Roger Schmidt was selling quarter, half and whole black Angus beef, the Farm Store, started becoming extremely popular.
Once an attached garage now became a local market where people could buy specific cuts of meat. Area families, who didn’t have freezer space for larger quantities, were stopping weekly to buy steak, bacon, or eggs.
Without really knowing it, Schmidt Century Farm was on the cutting edge of a national trend, where the public enjoys shopping directly from the farmer and learning where their food comes from.
Seeing that incredible growth means the Schmidts need more space and will be expanding the Farm Store in the coming months.
“The increased capacity in the Farm Store will give us more space for local products,” said Deanna.
“The added space will also help make us more visible and accessible from the road, we can have increased capacity, and there will be room for a commercial kitchen, meeting space, storage and we’ll have a heated shop for tractor fixing and space for vending during our farm open house.”
Designs feature a cozy porch, open balcony, and a much larger space for the Farm Store.
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