Gould's, the iconic sugarshack restaurant on Route 2 in Shelburne, has closed. Gould's has served tourists and locals alike since 1960 and will be sorely missed.
Davenport Maple Farm Sugar Restaurant
But off Route 2 at 111 Tower Rd. in Shelburne is Davenport Maple Farm with a restaurant, sales area and evaporator to view. The restaurant is opens in the sugar season March to mid-April, 8:00-3:00. Their pancakes and other syrup delivery items are quite straightforward and include gluten-free options, but their "Finnish" pancakes are unusual and delicious! Diners are served a 2 oz. bottle of maple syrup to use with their breakfast and take home as a souvenir. Sap buckets hang near Davenport's evaporator.
The Red Bucket Sugar Shack's red buckets
Sadly, this delightful sugar shack has closed its doors for good, but I leave the pictures up in memory of it. Worthington in western Massachusetts is far off the beaten trail from Charlemont, but when the Red Bucket Sugar Shack topped a 2013 Fox News survey of the ten best sugar shack restaurants in the U.S., we had to go.
We were happy to report that Fox News has much better taste in restaurants than in politics!
The sales area fills with steam from the evaporator (above).
Worthington boasts two other sugar restaurants, both open weekends in the foliage season as well as the sugar season. Just off 112, Windy Hill Farm claims to be the oldest sugar shack restaurant in Massachusetts and is certainly the most rustic. If you need cream for your coffee, an open pint will appear on the table, family members grab breakfast among the guests, and if you need to use the facilities, a genuine outhouse awaits you.
Windy Hill Farm: the oldest sugarshack restaurant in Massachusetts
But the food is plentiful and good: feather-light French toast, waffles, or a variety gigantic pancakes—apple, pumpkin, chocolate chip, blueberry—that you can mix and match, and the restaurant has a loyal following and a longer season than most. It’s open from 8-2 in a sugar season that lasts from late February until Easter and re-opens in foliage season.
Inside Windy Hill
South of Windy Hill, right on 112, the High Hopes Farm sugar restaurant, open from 7-2, serves an all-you-can-eat buffet...
Satisfied customers at High Hopes Farm
...with pancakes, French toast, scrambled eggs, home fries, bacon, sausage, ham, and a variety of beverages including tea, juice, and coffee. A pitcher of pure maple syrup sits on every table, and, if you sit near the window, you'll look down on a beautiful gorge, carved out by the Little River.
The Little River runs behind High Hopes sugar restaurant.
In the fall, High Hopes turns its evaporator room into a haunted house and serves the same plentiful buffet.
A number of sugarshack restaurants serve the I-91/Northampton area. Steve’s Sugar Shack at 35 North Road in Westhampton is open weekends from late February through mid-April from 7-1. The menu is limited, but the French toast is delicious and the blueberry pancakes look great. Steve’s employs an efficient system for ordering your meal. Guests are seated at long tables near or below the evaporator. On Sundays, a neighbor brings his oxen, who, ostensibly, pull a sled outfitted with a tank to gather sap from buckets in the woods. (When we were there, however, the oxen mainly greeted visitors, while their owner explained how he used them for his logging business as an environmentally friendly alternative to a truck.)
Oxen greet visitors and (maybe) help with sugaring at Steve's Sugar Shack in Westhampton.
Williams Farm Sugarhouse, located on Routes 5 & 10 just south of Historic Deerfield, is open daily mid-February to mid-April and serves a variety of delicious pancakes, waffles, French toast and various sides, including maple cream doughnuts.
The Williams family began sugaring on Mt. Toby in Sunderland in the 1850’s and opened their more conveniently located sugarhouse in Deerfield in 1994. Patrons order at the counter and can visit the evaporator in the next room while they wait for their food.
A Williams family member stirs the boiling sap. A sign from the original Mt. Toby Sugarhouse sits against the wall.
The North Hadley Sugar Shack is conveniently located on Route 47 three miles north of Route 9 for those who want to visit the Amherst area.
They serve the standard French toast, waffles, and pancakes, with eggs if you want them and ice cream, fruit and whipped cream toppings also an option. Breakfast is served every day in sugar season (mid-February to mid-April) from 7:00-2:00. Compared to the more out-of-the-way sugar restaurants, service here is very fast. Visitors can view the evaporator, which sits right outside the dining room, and a well-stocked farm store is open for most of the year.
Tending the evaporator at the North Hadley Sugar Shack
The Strawbale Cafe at Hanging Mountain Farm at 188 North St. in Westhampton is open year round for breakfast every Saturday and Sunday from 9-2 except in January. The cafe has a full breakfast menu, including pancakes with a wide variety of add-ins, during most of the year but is more limited in sugar season because of the large crowds. The menu is simplified at that time and pancakes are limited to chocolate chip and blueberry, but, of course, the sugar house is working and can be visited. Seasonal vegetables, like asparagus, are added to the menu as they become available. The cafe is so named because it is made from bales of straw although these are covered by wood and stucco, so you won't see any straw when you visit.
In the town of Hancock, almost on the New York border, Ioka Valley Farm offers four-season family entertainment, not least of which is its maple breakfasts, served from mid-February to early April on weekends 8-3.
Once a dairy farm, Ioka offers an array of pancakes and French toast, including a delicious stuffed French toast, in the former calf barn, aptly named the Calf-A.
Visitors can observe an enormous high tech evaporator and purchase all grades of maple syrup as well as maple cream, maple sugar, maple cotton candy, cider doughnuts and other farm produce. Ioka’s four-season entertainment includes a petting zoo and play with wooden bovines in the summer and fall.