Joe Huber's Family Farm and Restaurant

http://www.joehubers.com/

Huber’s is good country cooking. Plain and simple. Huber’s in its entirety is an orchard, store, winery, several restaurants, petting zoo, play ground, donkey ride, hay ride, u-pick patch, garden jazz eatery, fishing hole, and so much more. What can you not do at Huber’s these days?

Well you probably can’t move if you go there right now. Just before Halloween is when parents from the city and nearby countryside flock to the Indiana farm-o-polis to pick some friggin’ pumpkins. It’s a zoo, I’m sure. This was always when I went when I was a kid. Recently I’ve been going in the wintertime and it’s soooo peaceful there! Taking friends from college there is always a treat – who doesn’t love watching goats frolic while very full and slightly toasted from a free wine tasting?

The eatery itself offers many options of salads, sandwiches and entrees at somewhat expensive prices. The side orders are my go-to items now. They are about three dollars and absolutely huge. They include the typical: cole slaw, mashed potatoes, chicken and dumplings (what I always get!), and sweet potatoes (yummy too!). I also must say that the catch with hubers – and what has always been the catch besides the good fried chicken – are the rolls. They serve these desserty, dumpling-like roles as appetizers along with an apple spread that is killer! Oh my, I could eat a lot of those. They are also good for feeding ducks or stray dogs after your meal, if you ask your waitress for a second or third serving.

Fifteen big ones is the price for the family style meal that includes lots of chicken (cuts and preparation of choice) and unlimited family-style sides. Warning: you will walk away full.

On one side of the room, which is more like an amphitheatre, is a row of several tables strung together for large parties to sit at. As a youngster, we’d sit over there with our school group (~70 people). Today I’ve seen some companies take their workers out to eat at Huber’s and sit over there. Maybe if you had enough offspring in your family who didn’t die of coronary failure before the age of four, you could all eat over there. The dining setup still confuses me.

On the other side of the acres of land is the winery’s tasting room. It’s in the upstairs to this building that sits across from one of the country stores down from the petting zoo. On the second floor is a room just sheerly for tasting wines. Now they always have free wines to try, but you have to be careful about how you go about tasting the “free” wines because they continuously change their policy (perhaps to charge those who haven’t yet gotten their degrees in drink mooching or who pre-gamed their entrance to the tasting room).

If you’re looking for some even better home cooking, try Colonel Sander’s place – the Colonel’s Lady (now known as Claudia Sanders). It’s worth the drive out to Shelbyville, Kentucky!