As a biker, I'd been through Paoli a few times along the Sugar River trail, but recently my daughter and I went to Seven Acre Dairy to check out their summer events and it was great. It's closer than you'd think, but feels like a different place and has great food, activities, and something unique each day. Below you can click through a few of our highlights, read about it, and hopefully plan your own visit soon!
First off, the the place is huge (it's built out from a restored dairy going back to 1888), with an Inn, restaurant, bar, ice cream café, patio seating - which was featuring live bluegrass music, picnic areas, a huge lawn with games and some climbing areas. It's also beautiful, right along the river and really peaceful.
Second, it was nice to have a mid-week adventure. Weekends are plenty busy in summer, but having a relaxing and fun place to visit was a fun change.
It was really hot the night we went, so we started our visit by checking out their dock by and jumping in the river and it was completely refreshing. Fun contrast to some of the Madison lakes, the river is actually really clean! It's shallow too, but we had fun floating down from their second dock. The rocks weren't sharp, but I might suggest water shoes or sandals if you can.
We then ordered dinner on the patio. We could listen to the music, and made a dash to climb some rocks and played a few board games while we waited for our food. I had the seasonal strawberry salad (from Carandale farm 5 minutes away!) with a super light whipped feta cheese. It was so big I brought almost half home! My daughter went for the kids menu and I was glad the mac and cheese was a) real - not some gooey/overcooked/mess, and that we got a vegetable with it. I'm not a huge cocktail person, but we could see the bar was hopping with all kinds of fanciness.
Tuesday is also half-price ice cream night, so how could we not? She surprised me and went for the coconut (much smoother and less fake sweet than I would have expected), and I demolished the "candyland" sundae.
She was excited to see they even have rooms to stay in, "looks like one is open, can we stay tonight? Tomorrow is movie night - we can just stay for that too!"
While we couldn't stay that night, we will back soon and want to check out all their summer fun - including Wednesday movies, Thursday food trucks, and plenty more.
