Kids Ride A Buggy And Eat Fry Pies At This Ohio Amish Country Farm

Somewhere along a two-lane road in Ohio, past fields cut into neat rectangles and mailboxes with no names on them, the smell of warm sugar drifts out of a farm building and stops cars in their tracks. What looks like a simple roadside market turns out to hold barns full of animals, a bakery that fires up hours before sunrise, and horse-drawn buggies waiting to take families down the lane.

Kids come for the goats and leave asking about the little fried pies wrapped in wax paper. It is the kind of stop that starts as a quick errand and turns into most of a day.

A Farm Market Parked On State Route 557

Millersburg sits in the middle of Holmes County, Ohio, and about six miles from its courthouse square you will find Hershberger’s Farm and Bakery at 5452 OH-557. The address matters less than the road itself, which winds through one of the most photographed stretches of Amish Country.

Calling it a bakery undersells things considerably. The property spreads across a market, a gift shop, a separate building for wood and leather goods, a food trailer, multiple animal barns, and a lane where buggies pick up passengers.

Family-owned and run by an Amish family, the operation has grown steadily over the years while keeping its plain-spoken character intact. Regulars who have been coming for a decade or more mention that the petting area in particular has expanded a great deal.

Parking is plentiful, which tells you something about how many people pull in on a summer Saturday. Produce is stacked outside the entrance, close enough that the smell of fresh fruit reaches you before the door does.

Visitors often describe arriving with one errand in mind and staying half the day instead.

Three Generations Of Recipes Behind The Counter

Long before the first car turns into the lot, lights are already on in the bakery. Staff begin mixing and rolling homemade pies around 4 a.m., with fry pies and cookies following near 6 or 7 a.m., so the cases fill up in waves through the morning.

Recipes here carry real lineage. The owners themselves refer to third-generation recipes, the kind passed down within Amish and Mennonite families rather than written in a cookbook and sold.

What that produces is a counter that feels less like a retail bakery and more like somebody’s kitchen scaled way up. Traditional fruit pies, pastries, breads, cookies, muffins, donuts, cinnamon rolls, and cream sticks all rotate through, and visitors have noted plenty of items priced around a dollar.

Some shoppers mention doughnuts remarkable as much for their size as their flavor. The line at the counter can stretch, particularly midday, and nobody in it seems to mind much.

With a 4.8-star average across roughly 4,800 reviews, the baking is clearly the anchor everything else grew around.

Fry Pies, The Handheld Reason People Detour

Ask around Holmes County about fry pies and Hershberger’s name comes up fast. Nearly 200 reviewers single them out, which is a lot of people agreeing on one pastry.

A fry pie, if you have never met one, is essentially a hand pie: dough folded around fruit filling, sealed at the edges, deep-fried instead of baked, and often finished with a thin glaze that cracks slightly when you bite it. The result is crisp on the outside, warm and jammy inside, and completely portable.

Made fresh daily on site, they come out of the kitchen in the early morning hours and disappear steadily all day. Some longtime customers say the fry pies and dinner rolls here beat anything they have tried elsewhere.

Kids tend to love them for the obvious reason that a pie you can hold in one hand while looking at goats is a superior kind of pie. Buy more than you think you need, because they rarely survive the drive home.

Fair warning from many shoppers: budgets get abandoned at this counter.

Buggy Rides Down The Country Lane

Nothing resets a kid’s sense of speed quite like a horse. Authentic Amish buggy rides leave from the farm and roll out into the Holmes County countryside at a pace measured in hoofbeats rather than miles per hour.

Tickets are sold near the entrance to the petting area, and going early in the day generally means a shorter wait. Families who have taken the ride often praise the drivers, who talk about Amish daily life along the route and answer whatever questions come up.

From the seat of a buggy, the landscape reads differently. Fields, fences, and farmhouses that blur past a car window come into focus, and the quiet is part of the appeal.

Grandparents seem to enjoy it as much as the children do, judging by how often multi-generation groups mention it. There are also small and larger horses that children can ride on the property, plus wagon rides that some visitors take instead.

For a lot of families, the buggy ends up being the memory that sticks, more than any purchase from the market.

Barns Full Of Animals And Goats On The Roof

Goats on the roof. That is not a figure of speech, and around 17 reviewers have felt the need to mention it, because watching goats stroll along elevated walkways above the barn is genuinely strange and delightful.

The petting area is the single most talked-about feature on the property, referenced in nearly 500 reviews. Multiple barns and outdoor pens hold cows, horses, sheep, goats, llamas, pigs, rabbits, and a few unexpected residents including a peacock, a longhorn, and parakeets.

Feed is available for purchase, and that small handful of pellets is what turns looking into interacting. Parents of teenagers report that even the older kids get pulled in.

Some of the animals have local celebrity status. There is a retired family driving horse named Jet, a Holstein steer called Charlie who has lived in the petting area since he was a calf, and a very large horse whose size gets noted repeatedly.

Visitors consistently comment on how clean the barns are and how well cared for the animals appear. Admission to the petting area does carry a fee, and a few regulars note it has increased over the years.

Cheeses, Noodles, Leather And Wooden Toys

Shoppers who arrive for pastry frequently leave with grocery bags. The farm store carries cheeses, meats, canned goods such as pears and beets, Amish noodles, soup starters, bulk spices, jams, jellies, candy, eggs, flowers, and fresh seasonal produce.

Samples are set out around the market, which is a dangerous policy for anyone trying to shop efficiently. Produce sits outside the entrance, and more than one visitor has commented on how strongly and pleasantly it perfumes the doorway.

In a separate building, the craft side of the operation takes over. Handmade leather goods are produced on site, and customers have watched artisans stitch wallets by hand, then bought one on the spot along with knives and knife sets.

USA-made wooden toys, textiles, and gift items round things out. Kettle corn popped in a kettle over open fire draws its own following, mentioned by more than 80 reviewers, alongside homemade ice cream and cider slushies that people describe as unexpectedly good.

Prices strike most shoppers as fair for the quality, which explains the repeat visitors who stop twice a year.

Who Fits Right In Here

Families with young kids get the most obvious payoff, but the crowd is broader than that. Grandparents come along and find the pace comfortable, teenagers get absorbed in feeding animals despite themselves, and food-focused adults treat the market as a shopping trip.

Busy is the normal state of things. The lot fills, the bakery line grows, and the barns hum with noise, yet visitors describe the atmosphere as relaxed rather than chaotic.

A food trailer on site handles breakfast, burgers, mini corn dogs, and chicken that people compare favorably to home cooking, so nobody has to leave hungry between activities. Staff get repeated compliments for friendliness, and the owners reply to reviews personally, often by name.

One honest note worth knowing before you go: restroom facilities have drawn criticism, with porta potties in use during busy stretches. Management has publicly acknowledged the issue and mentioned plans to upgrade.

Autumn brings mums, pumpkins, and fall decor that turn the whole property into a seasonal destination. October adds free wagon rides out to the pumpkin patch, where families pick their own.

Planning The Drive Out

Sunday is the one day you should not make the drive. The farm and bakery run Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and close entirely on Sundays in keeping with Amish practice.

Mornings reward early risers. Fresh baked goods hit the cases through the first hours, buggy ride waits tend to be shortest, and the parking lot has room to breathe before the midday rush arrives.

Getting there means driving State Route 557, itself a scenic byway threading through farm country southwest of Millersburg. Watch for buggies sharing the road and take the curves gently.

The phone number is 330-674-6096 if you want to check on seasonal activities, and the website is hershbergersfarmandbakery.com. Bring cash sensibility along with your card, since the market makes it easy to spend more than planned.

Would I tell a friend heading through Ohio to take the turn? Without hesitation.

Between the fry pies, the barn full of animals, and a buggy ride that slows everything down for twenty minutes, this is one of those farm stops that keeps families talking about it long after the wax paper is empty.