Grocery shop at local farms near Rockford, Illinois
- Little Guide 815
- Mar 19
- 3 min read
Have you ever wondered what is in your food, or where it came from? Dear reader, this post is for you! If you live in Northern Illinois or Southern Wisconsin, Little Guide 815 will give you a great itinerary for a fun-filled farm-hopping excursion for the whole family!
Note: We are going to include breakfast, lunch, and dinner plans, and we highly recommend checking to see if the farms are open before visiting. Bring a cooler bag for your groceries! We are going to be traveling about 30 minutes west of Rockford, Illinois.
Coffee: Stop at Rosie's coffee in Pecatonica for breakfast, a homemade muffin, smoothie, or espresso to get the day started. Rosie's coffee is located at 507 Main St, Pecatonica
Next stop: Arrow Farm Meats
If you only have time for one stop, this is the place! Watch your locally raised beef be butchered through a window (this is where knowing where your meat came from, and what is in it is at play), then shop the freshest cuts inside the farm's storefront. Arrow Farm Meats also sells a variety of other farm - fresh items, like the neighbor's homemade yogurt. Multiple giant freezers also offer frozen cookie dough, pork, pies, and pre-made, homemade, frozen meals for families. We grabbed beef jerky and beef sticks (venison jerky is also available) for another snack in the car for the trip. Freezer meat packages are available, as well as quarters and halves of a cow. Most traditional payment methods are available.
Yogurt: neighbors to Arrow Farm meats is Deerland Dairy- drive down the long driveway, walk into the open shed and grab homemade yogurt (other dairy products are sometimes available). Cash payment box is available, as well as Venmo information to pay for your farm products! Deerland Dairy is located at 3693 N Dakota Rd, Freeport, IL.
Eggs: Eggs on Eggert offers eggs, gift baskets, canned goods, and baked goods! Eggs on Eggert has a farm stand located at 10378 Eggert Rd, Rock City. Venmo, Cashapp, and cash are all available payment methods.
Cheese, lunch, and ice cream: Locally made cheese from locally- raised cows is available at Megz Country Cheese. Megz is an old-fashioned country gas station that has been converted into a lunch and ice-cream stop that sells a lot of cheese. Megz also sells deli sandwiches, soup, shakes, malts, and ice cream!
Jersey Haven: This place is so fun to go into: before you see your milk, you walk by the cows! Jersey Haven offers raw milk in two varieties: regular and A2A2 (easier to digest). Next to the cows is a room with refridgerators full of gallons and half-gallons of milk. Since the milk is raw, you can take home this milk and make whipped cream and butter from the cream that settles at the top!
Dinner: The Graybill Kitchen offers dinner and catering with homemade desserts and family-friendly meals. The Graybill Kitchen is well-known in the area for their pies!
After a morning or afternoon of farm-hopping, we recommend stopping at the country arcade- Gamestar arcade in Durand, Illinois! Durand is just a few miles away from Rock City, Pecatonica, and Davis, Illinois.
Little Guide 815 is looking forward to roadside stands and the start of fruits and vegetables being sold by other local farmers! In the meantime, check out our Amazon travel recs for kids in the backseat:
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