Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika
With her genuinely good heart and a wealth of experience behind her, Susannah works to connect local business and non-profit leaders to their neighbors. In a community like ours in which so many have invested their lives, there are fantastic stories all around us that motivate and inspire, often right next door. She hopes to share some of those here, on the Good Neighbor Podcast. Book an interview today at GNPAuburn.com
Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika
Ep.#17 Behind the Scenes at the Farm at Rocky Top with Jan Lawrence
Meet Jan Lawrence, our guest in this episode, who gives us an intimate tour of her cherished Farm at Rocky Top, a beloved event venue shrouded in history and features. From enchanting spring weddings to fun-filled pumpkin patches and cozy holiday celebrations, Jan shares how they cater to all ages!
Curious about how to connect with this remarkable farm? Jan spills all the information you need, so buckle up for this invigorating journey to the Farm at Rocky Top. Their commitment to fun, family-friendly experiences and their dedication to the community is sure to leave you inspired.
The Farm at Rocky Top
2910 Lee Road 145 / Salem, AL 36874
(334) 559-5567
jan@thefarmatrockytop.com
This is the Good Neighbor podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Susanna Hodges.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor podcast. With me is Jan Lawrence with the farm at Rocky Top. Hi, jan, how are you doing today? Hey, fine, thank you. Thanks for joining me. Tell us a little bit about the farm at the Rocky Top.
Speaker 3:Well, the farm at Rocky Top has been in my family since 1973 when my parents bought the farm. My daddy was a logger and he liked cows so he bought the land and built a shop so we can work on his equipment. And he bought cows because he loved cows. And we call it Rocky Top because not because we're Tennessee fans, it's more because we grow rocks on the farm. People say, you grow rocks? I said, well, it's called erosion. But we just got all these big rocks on the farm. So dad started getting these piles and piles of rocks. So that's why we call it Rocky Top.
Speaker 2:How fun. And so it's a family business. That's really neat.
Speaker 3:Yeah, pretty, pretty much. The farm was just a farm until 2015, when we started building the venue and we had our first event in June of 2016.
Speaker 2:And so what kind of events do you hold there?
Speaker 3:In the springtime we do weddings and events and in the fall we have our Pumpkin Patch, rocky Top Pumpkin Patch and we have Country Christmas at Rocky Top. And then this past May we started our Arts and Crafts Weekend and we call it Hay Days, hay Hay Days, and that's a two day event in May. We did try November Hay Days, but with us transitioning between the Pumpkin Patch and our Country Christmas. It was hard work so we probably won't do it in November Hay Days, but we will have some pop-up vendor events during our Country Christmas.
Speaker 2:Now, that sounds wonderful. So tell us a little bit about where you're located. I know farms are out in the country, so is it pretty easy to find you.
Speaker 3:It is really easy to find us. We are about 20 minutes from Auburn, 18 minutes from Opalika and about 20 minutes from Columbus and Phoenix City. You can access us either going down Highway 169 out of Opalika or headed to 80 East going towards Phoenix City. So we're kind of, if you put your arms out one, your right arm is 169 and your left arm is Highway 280, our road, lee Road 145, connects the two. Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:So that's super easy, very convenient to get there, especially if you want to get out of town but don't really have to go very far to find a country setting right.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly, we are from Moore's Mill Road, where the public says we are three turns from there. Okay, very cool, 18 minutes from there, so we're pretty easily accessed from this area.
Speaker 2:So if you were to have an event out at your farm what I'm assuming you have like a barn and some outdoor, what does the property look like?
Speaker 3:We have an event barn and it is a 7,000 square foot facility. The main floor is just a big open area with a custom bar. We have a warming kitchen. On the outskirts of that we have a lot of pasture land. We've got a pond in the background and we've got a pavilion, a farmhouse and what we call the meat house. And the meat house kind of started events down here. When I was growing up we used to slaughter a hog at Thanksgiving and we take the meat into the house and make sausage and it became known as the meat house and over the years it's had four additions and it's really big. It's very, very unique. If you picture countries, barbecue and cracker barrel merging, that's what our meat house looks like.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you can have gatherings at any of those places on the farm.
Speaker 3:Well, mainly it's just the event barn. When we have weddings, the wedding party has access to the farmhouse and the meat house for the guys and the girls to get ready in. And then we do allow for rehearsal dinners in the meat house on Friday nights. That's really got the time the meat house gets rented out. Just because we're so busy with all our other events, we don't have time to rent that out, except for when it's associated with a wedding.
Speaker 2:Okay, so in the fall, when you have your pumpkin patches and all of your you know fall events. What would that experience be like, coming out to one of your pumpkin patches?
Speaker 3:Well, our pumpkin patch. We started in 2017. We had our first pumpkin patch. It was a three weekend event and we were definitely newbies at this time. Now it is a five weekend event with field trips during the week and this year we had over 25,000 visitors come in for the pumpkin. We like to. We don't do anything scary, we're so family oriented. Down here I have I don't even call them scarecrows, I call them country crows that don't have a scary face on it, but I use them as props and just features around the farm. We have different areas that we refer to, but for our pumpkin patch we have hay rides, inflatables, animal barn, roly poly, hay bale mountain, duck races, corn crib and a lot of quirky games. We and it's just not catered to the toddler or the little kid I mean I have grownups getting on hay bale mountain and doing the duck races and getting on the pony express, pony hop. So that's one thing. It's not just for kids that we're catering to. We're catering for all ages.
Speaker 2:Oh, it sounds like a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:It is. It is when people come. They'll stay for three or four hours.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it's a good you can spend a good morning or afternoon there, absolutely, absolutely so. Are there any misconceptions about you know events at farms or you know what you do? That that you'd like to clear up?
Speaker 3:Not really the really the only issue we have is we sit on the central and eastern time zone and that that was a big Thing that we hurdle, we had to overcome. We now know that you will never hear from me unless I specify a time zone on all of our Social media, on our website, on letters that we sent out to schools for filtrate to Brice, you've got to specify what time zone you're in. Like Brice, I tell them. If you live in eastern time zone, you really need to put that on your invitation because we're in central time. That confuses a lot of people, especially when it comes to field trips, and I'm very I have learned that when I mentioned a time or write it down, it is always referred to in central time zone.
Speaker 2:Unless we're so close to Georgia and it's a problem all the time Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:The other misconception is people think this is an easy job. Only the venue is not an easy job. I spent 30 years as a nurse, mostly at the bedside. I thought that was Exhausting. But no only a venue is very exhausting. You're always on call, so to speak. Even when you think you have a day off, you you're still answering emails and phone calls. But it's it's extremely reward Rewarding for us. I think I was meant to do this all along.
Speaker 2:Well, good, good. So part of the reason I do this podcast is to encourage other business owners, especially new business owners. So you've been doing this for a while. What kinds of challenges did you have that you overcame? That made your business stronger and made you stronger.
Speaker 3:You need to realize the importance of customer service. For one thing, I'm a very detail oriented person. I Am very I Like people at the first impressions are the Lasting impressions, so to speak. But when people come out, I want not only my staff To have good interactions with our customers and our guests, but when they come here, I want their first comment to be wow, this is amazing. And we try to do that and everything we do whether it's the pumpkin patch or country Christmas or our weddings we want people to go Wow.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I'm sure they do. I've seen actually been out to your farm and it is, it is wow. I would say that that's absolutely true.
Speaker 3:And Wait, I mean we, we, we take care a lot of the decorations ourselves. We build our props, we build our games. Yeah, and I like to keep it down to down to earth. I want people to Come out and see things that are homemade, handmade and that you don't find at every other venue. I want our two venues to be different, whether it's through the weddings, or pumpkin patch or Christmas. We just want it to be different from anything you've ever experienced.
Speaker 2:Have a very unique experience there. Well, what's one thing you wish people knew about your business that they don't maybe necessarily think of?
Speaker 3:Well, I really I don't. I don't think I know the answer to that or how to how to answer that. We still have a lot of people that come here for the first time and go I never knew you were here and I'm like, wow, what can I do to get get out there more? We do all the advertising through social media in our website and, of course, word of mouth is the best way to advertise, but it's still just. I want everybody to know about us.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah. Well, how would you get in touch with you if you had an event or wanted to come to one of the fall Events? What's the best way to get in touch with you?
Speaker 3:The best way is just go to our website and look my number up. It's the only number on there and it's the farm at rocky top comm. And then we have our social media Through Facebook and Instagram, and all of our information is on there.
Speaker 2:All right, well, thank you so much for joining me, jan. It's been a real pleasure learning about you and the farm at Rocky top.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast Auburn. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gmpauverncom. That's gmpauverncom, or call 334-429-7404.