This Connecticut Dairy Farm Serves Up Incredible Ice Cream And Homemade Sandwiches

Farm visits become significantly more persuasive when ice cream is waiting somewhere on the property.

Here, the scoops are made on the farm, flavors rotate through the season, and a waffle cone can very quickly become the main reason you stayed longer than planned.

Lunch has its own appeal too.

The farm store serves turkey sandwiches alongside baked goods and plenty of locally produced foods, so showing up hungry is actually a pretty good strategy.

What makes the stop especially fun is how naturally everything fits together.

You can grab something savory, wander outside for a bit, then return to the extremely serious business of choosing an ice cream flavor.

Connecticut has plenty of places for dessert, but getting your cone from a working family farm gives the whole outing a little extra personality.

Lunch first, ice cream second. That feels like excellent farm planning.

1. Family Farming Makes This Country Stop Special

Everyone pitches in here. That is part of the charm.

At Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm, family members share the work of raising animals, helping customers, and keeping a local farming tradition moving forward.

Turkeys may be the stars, but the farm goes well beyond its best-known birds. Pastures are also home to chickens and other livestock, while the farm store carries a broad selection of meats raised right on the property.

That direct connection between pasture and purchase gives shopping here a distinctly local Connecticut feel.

The Hermonot family started with just 15 turkeys in 1998. Over time, the operation grew dramatically, yet the focus on pasture-raised food and family involvement remained central to the business.

Customers can also join the farm’s year-round Community Supported Agriculture program. CSA members receive shares built around pasture-raised meats, poultry, or eggs, creating an easy way to buy directly from the people producing the food.

Holiday season gives the farm another burst of energy. Fresh turkeys become especially important, and the store stocks plenty of locally produced additions for the table.

What makes the experience memorable, though, is its straightforward warmth. The people working here know the farm firsthand and are ready to help customers understand what is available.

2. Remote Farmland Near The State Line Sets The Scene

The drive already feels like part of the outing. Roads grow quieter as you head into the Quiet Corner, and the scenery shifts toward open farmland with old stone walls tracing the edges.

Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm sits high enough to make the surroundings part of the experience. Wide views stretch across the working farm, while picnic tables give visitors an easy excuse to slow down after shopping or grabbing something from the farm cafe.

During seasonal events, the grounds take on extra energy, but the rural setting still keeps the visit relaxed.

Getting here can feel pleasantly removed from busier parts of the state. The farm is close enough to Rhode Island that visitors regularly approach from either direction, and its own driving instructions provide routes from Providence as well as central parts of the neighboring state.

One detail can confuse first-time visitors: the farm is in Sterling, while its mailing address uses Moosup. Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm is at 227 Ekonk Hill Road, Moosup, CT 06354.

Once you arrive, that technical distinction quickly stops mattering. The open landscape, picnic seating, and country-road setting make the trip feel less like an errand and more like an easy rural break.

3. Fifteen Turkeys Started The Farm Story In 1998

It started with 15 birds. That was it. What began as a small 1998 project for family and friends slowly grew into something much bigger.

Today, Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm raises roughly 3,000 pasture-raised turkeys and calls itself the largest grower of pasture-raised turkeys in the state. The growth happened over years, but the family connection behind the operation never disappeared.

The birds are raised outdoors on pasture, giving them room to move through the farm’s green fields. That approach remains central to how the Hermonot family describes its operation and has helped make fresh turkeys the centerpiece of the business.

Thanksgiving brings the biggest rush. Fresh pasture-raised birds are especially popular during the holiday season, while frozen turkey products allow customers to bring that farm-raised flavor home at other times of year.

The farm has expanded well beyond its original flock, yet the beginning still makes the story memorable. Those first 15 turkeys were raised simply to share with people close to the family.

More than twenty-five years later, the idea has grown into a major local farming operation. What started around one family’s table now helps fill holiday tables across the region.

4. The Brown Cow Café Added A Sweeter Side

April 2006 marked a turning point for the farm. That is when the Brown Cow Café opened its window, giving visitors a reason to stop by that had nothing to do with holiday meat orders.

The name comes from Blossom, a Jersey cow who lived on the farm and whose memory still shows up on the flavor board. Super premium ice cream is made fresh right on the property, and the café has quietly become the reason many people first discover the place at all.

Seating splits between indoors and out. Picnic tables face the fields, shaded by trees and positioned so you can watch goats, ducks, and turkeys go about their business while you work through a cone.

When the weather turns cool, there is a spot inside near a stove where you can warm up and eat at a slower pace.

Service tends to move quickly even when a line forms, something regulars appreciate on busy weekend afternoons. The overall feeling is relaxed rather than polished, with families spread across the tables and kids running between the animal pens and the picnic area.

It works because nothing about it feels manufactured.

5. Homemade Ice Cream Changes Flavors With The Seasons

Butter pecan with butterscotch chips and vanilla crunch. That combination goes by the name Blossom’s Delight, and it is one of the two signature flavors that keep people driving back out this way.

The other is Narragansett Cookie, coffee ice cream loaded with Oreos. Beyond those, the regular lineup covers vanilla, chocolate, coffee, chocolate chip, strawberry, cookie dough, Oreo, black raspberry, maple walnut, cherry vanilla, and Reese’s.

What makes a visit unpredictable in the best way is the seasonal rotation. Blueberry, cucumber, corn, pumpkin, Indian pudding, and peppermint stick all make appearances depending on the time of year, and autumn regularly brings pumpkin and apple strudel.

The daily selection shifts, so what you had last visit may not be waiting for you.

Waffle cones are made fresh on site, and the menu extends to milkshakes, sundaes, banana splits, brownie sundaes, and apple cider donut sundaes. Dairy-free sorbet options such as mango give non-dairy eaters something worthwhile too.

Scooped ice cream runs roughly from mid-March through mid-November. Outside that window, pints and quarts stay available in the farm store year-round, so a February trip does not have to end empty-handed.

6. Turkey Sandwiches Put Farm-Raised Meat To Work

Ordering a turkey sandwich at a turkey farm feels almost too obvious, and that is exactly why it works so well. The meat comes from birds raised on the same pastures you can see from the picnic tables, which is not something most sandwich counters can claim.

Homemade sandwiches are part of the café menu alongside the ice cream, and the Thanksgiving sandwich draws the most attention. Visitors frequently single it out as a highlight of their trip, sometimes ranking it above the ice cream that brought them there in the first place.

Pairing a sandwich with a cone afterward has become a natural rhythm for people who make the drive. Lunch first at an outdoor table, dessert second, with a walk past the animal pens somewhere in between.

Because the café operates with a small kitchen and seasonal rhythms, the sandwich selection can shift. Calling ahead is a reasonable move if you have your heart set on something specific, especially outside peak months.

The larger point is simple enough. Farm-raised meat that travels a few hundred feet from pasture to plate tastes like it, and that short distance is the whole appeal.

7. Fall Brings The Famous Hot Gobbler Sundae

Picture a sundae bowl. Now fill it with mashed potatoes, stuffing, farm-raised turkey, and gravy, then top the whole thing with a dollop of cranberry sauce instead of a cherry.

That is the Hot Gobbler Sundae, and it has earned a small legend of its own. Regulars describe it plainly as Thanksgiving dinner in a bowl, which is about as accurate a description as anyone could write.

Timing matters if you want one. It shows up as a seasonal lunch item in the fall, typically on weekends from around September through Halloween, lining up neatly with corn maze and hayride season.

The combination of savory and playful is what makes it memorable. You are eating a full holiday plate out of an ice cream dish, outdoors, at a picnic table, surrounded by the same fields where the turkey was raised.

Few meals manage to be comforting and slightly silly at the same time.

Pair it with an apple cider donut sundae afterward if you have the appetite. Autumn is easily the busiest and most festive stretch of the farm’s year, and the Hot Gobbler is the dish most closely tied to that season.

8. Farm Shopping Makes It Easy To Stay Longer

Ice cream is just the opening act. Once the cone is gone, the farm store makes it surprisingly easy to keep browsing.

Freezer cases are packed with pasture-raised meats from Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm, including turkey, beef, chicken, pork, lamb, goat, goose, and capon. Homemade turkey pies offer an easy comfort-food option, while the farm’s chicken eggs share space with seasonal goose, duck, or turkey eggs.

Then the bakery starts calling. Fresh apple cider doughnuts are a favorite, with breads and fruit pies adding even more temptation.

Shelves also feature goods from regional producers, including farmstead cheese and local milk. Honey, maple syrup, pantry staples, and handmade gifts make wandering a little longer worthwhile.

Fall brings extra personality to the store. Pumpkins and mums appear for the season, while rotating ice cream flavors lean into autumn too.

Scooped ice cream continues into mid-November, so cooler weather does not automatically end cone season.

The store stays open year-round, giving visitors reasons to return well beyond fall. What begins as a dessert stop can easily turn into grocery shopping.

One minute you are choosing an ice cream flavor, and soon dinner is headed home in a cooler beside a bag of doughnuts.