I feel like the easiest way to share whats been going on at Grateful is to write a farming blog post and candidly share with all our faithful and loyal neighbors-club members why we have been making changes and transforming often here at Grateful. I think the easiest way to explain our journey is with some quick bullet points so everything is clear, transparent and easy to track. Feel free to share this with the Community.
The Grateful Vineyard opened Memorial Day weekend of 2019 and we opened to such an amazing amount of community support that it melted our hearts with gratitude and love. We learned quickly we were understaffed and it was going to a rocking summer. I still work at a Nurse Practitioner a few days a week off the farm to make my land payments so my parents can retire. Being a Nurse Practitioner has helped us stay safe during a Pandemic and helped pay the bills in the most financially stressful year of my life.
Our Tasting Room is located in the heart of our 3rd generation farm Mt View Orchards. Our mission remains the same to weave together farming, fermentation and to offer our guests warm hospitality and nourishment. I own both the farm and the Tasting Room but if you visit often you will see that I farm with my amazing parents ,Lyle and Ruthie (both 76 years old) and awesome ag team. We have about 5 acres of wine grapes planted and plan to plant more.
We barely survived our first winter finically. I want to personally thank everyone for supporting Grateful and finding ways to back us up all year long because you believed in what we had created. I also want to wholeheartedly thank my brother Ryan for created an amazing food pairing pizza menu and personally pulling off many successful pop-ups that kept our baby business afloat. Sometimes our only customers of the day were my supportive parents in January our first winter. (Shout out to Lyle and Ruthie the best parents ever)
We entered The Covid Shut Down in March of 2020 ( also our first spring open) with negative resources but a lot of passion to see this dream make it so we pushed different affordable specials on instagram every night to nourish our community and to keep my employees feed. I farmed during the day then at 3pm we slung beer, cider, wine and pie till dark-then did it again the next day. I worked every single day of the shut down to make sure we made it out alive and didnt lose the farm.
The Governor allowed us to open back up outside on May 15th of 2020 and I decided to space out all our picnic tables throughout our vineyard meadow because I truly believed that folks had been cooped up for too long and time on a farm is restorative to ones soul. Thankfully we had the space to give everyone ample 25+ to spread out and be safe at grateful. Zero cases were traced back to us the entire time and now my staff is thankfully vaccinated. (We made it- Phew) I am so damn proud of my team and all the hard work added to them to keep us disinfected and safe for months unending.
You all came out in droves and we truly tried our best to serve you all and make you feel at home at Grateful (inside and out) I am so darn proud of my team for all their amazing efforts these past years to create a special experiences for our guests here at Grateful.
I am a positive person so I will make this part brief because it has been really painful as a new female farmer/minority business owner. A few local businesses downtown and a local non-profit were NOT excited that we were offering a local gathering space at our winery cidery, brewery and filed complaints about the Grateful Vineyard Covid set up and with the OLCC.
the OLCC came out that week and declared what we were doing everything in compliance and cleared us immediately. One has to serve food alongside alcohol and we were doing just that as well as checking IDs. Nothing came of it.
Hood River County planning decided to audit us based on these complaints starting in late Fall of 2020 and we have had to make many changes ever since as I have willingly partnered with them to keep our tasting room going strong and everyones jobs safe. At Grateful we have decided to be completely transparent and gracious with all our loyal guests who have struggled to understand why we had to pivot so often. I know it was hard to learn we could not offer take out pie any longer but frankly it was never my goal to do so ( covid required it). We have a special location that we want our guests to come and experience personally.
We were asked to become more identified as a Tasting Room with food pairing served alongside flights. So we switched to tasting appointments and all food pairings are served alongside our libations. This has been a smashing success and you guys have remained so supportive and loving of our small family farm/vineyard in our short journey here in Parkdale. Inside our tasting room and on the covered patio - We are open to 21+ guests and these tasting experiences require reservations prior to visiting. Come join us soon.
The Grateful Garden is OPEN daily 12-7pm daily, all ages are welcome, friendly dogs on leashes, sometimes food trucks join us, we have music every Wednesday night for locals nights, bringing picnics are most welcome and we have our pizza by the slice. Yes Flights are available in the Garden as well. We also have our house made Root beer. Club members can also get their free flights in the garden with no reservation required.
Our Club quadrupled in size and you guys have been so amazingly supportive of us here at Grateful. This has been a huge gift to us and I want to thank everyone who has singed up to keep us going strong. Love Grateful? Love discounts and free flights? Ask about joining today please email thegratefulfarmer@gmail.com to join the grateful club.
The Good news, is that we hired a highly experienced Tasting Room General Manager- Cody Robison (who lives locally in Parkdale) Cody is highly skilled and has been creating a relaxing and restorative experience for our guests at Grateful and training up our wonderful team. He has a lot of experience in hospitality and we are lucky to have leading our Grateful team.
the lovely Anastasia Yue, moved into our Wine Club and Event Coordinator and has doing an amazing job in this very important role.
We added another Brewer- award winning- Jordan Hunt, formerly of Sun River Brewing and we have some delicious new beers he created on tap in our Garden and inside Grateful. Beer lovers its time to join us in the garden. Chris Vincenzo is here as well making beer and small craft hard cider for you all.
I am pleased to announce that we added an amazing Wine Maker, Ali Mayfield- She has honed her craft at Long Shadows Vintners, Corliss Estates, and Tranche Cellars, working alongside winemakers such as Gilles Nicault, Kendall Mix, and consultant Claude Gros. I can’t tell you how excited I am to have a female wine maker apart of our team. Stay tuned for the Grateful estate release wines coming soon.
But do you still make Pizza? Heck Yes, it is served as a part of a three course pairing along side your tasting menu as one of the courses served with your beer flight. Head online to make Reservations. Farm to table charcuterie, tapas, pie and a tasting of all our libations. Groups up to 6 people. We serve it by the slice with your sips in the garden as well.
No you cannot order our food pairings in the garden or to go but all our libations are offered there and we would be delighted to have you joins us any day of the week with no reservation required. Picnics welcome. No outside alcohol. please bring your ID
This is a brave and uncertain shift for us as we know it has been difficult for everyone to understand why we have had to keep pivoting so much here at Grateful. Some of it has been because of the global pandemic and the rapidly changing restrictions by the governor and some of it is because we are wanting to create a more farm to table food pairing experience here that is in alignment with our values as farmers/fermentors. I believe with all these intentional changes we have made ie created tasting appointments with seasonal food pairings, adding Hard Seltzer/Root Beer, The Family Friendly Grateful (Beer) Garden, adding flights in the garden, adding complimentary music/locals night, Important new hires and the back up of our faithful community Grateful is going to become even better than before. We will always be family friendly here on the farm outside in the garden.
The Grateful Farmer Planting Riesling in 2016 image Lavick Media
I want to wholeheartedly thank you all for standing by us as we are trying to create a one of a kind experience here on our small family farm. I hope to see you all this summer in the Garden or inside for our special new tasting/food pairing experience, picking fruit or for one of our farm to table dinners (see below). Love Grateful? What to see us thrive for generations to come? Consider joining our club and coming and supporting us with our new changes.
xo you’re Grateful Farmers, Trina and Kenny
ATTENTION: Join us for our first guest Chef experience of 2021 happening soon on the farm. We are thrilled to partner with Chef Sabrina Brzusek of Swine Dining (photo below)
July 25th 2021
4-7pm
$125/person
20% off for our club members
Tickets include
2 drinks upon arrival
Five course tasting menu curated by Chef Sabrina featuring locally sourced seasonal farm to table ingredients with our libation pairings.
Chef Sabrina Brzusek hails from prestigious kitchens such as Canlis, Cafe’ Pressse and Osteria La Spiga. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity so plan on joining us for this magical evening at Mt View Orchards Rustic Covered Pavilion. (We’ve got you covered rain or shine)
Call us at 541-399-6665 to join our table. Tickets are going fast so call us today (21+ only please)
Chef Sabrina the fisher queen
