Food/Dining : Sturgeon Bay

Dairy View Country Store
5169 County I
Sturgeon Bay
920-743-9779

Wow! What a cool place! Who says there isn’t anything for kids to do in Door County!?! The Dairy View Country Store located on Schopf’s Hilltop Dairy in Carlsville is definitely a place to check out while in Door County, for “kids” of all ages. It’s fun, educational and there are plenty of things to do – like learn how a real dairy farm works, actually watch cows being milked and go on an adventure through a corn maze!

No kidding, they have a really cool maze that is meticulously designed and carved out in a real cornfield. And when you get done exploring the corn maze you can go back into the store and sample some home-made ice cream - it’s delicious! This is awesome for the whole family - whether you’re city folks or country folks, it doesn’t matter, you’ll have a great time at this real live working dairy farm and country store. And what’s even better, the prices for the activities and the homemade ice cream are very reasonable. We had a great time with the staff during our visit, and owners Dennis and Roxanne Schopf are super. Read on to learn about our “adventures” at the Hilltop Dairy.

The Store
The Dairy View Country Store features great ice cream made in the parlor right inside the store. As a matter of fact, you can watch them make it through a viewing window and the staff is very happy to answer any of your questions. They have all the standard flavors like chocolate, vanilla, Heath Bar, M&M and strawberry shortcake as well as the “farm specialty” Cookies Crunch. This spectacular flavor is a blend of Butterfinger and Snickers bars with a vanilla base and is named after “Cookie” the farm mascot. There is a larger than life statue of Cookie displayed out front of the store that you can’t miss as you drive in.   The flavors change from time to time, so stop in often.

Ice Cream and Homemade Fudge Tastings
We had the butter pecan made fresh that day and it was excellent. In Spring 2004, we had to test the Caramel Cashew (rich and awesome), Cookie Dough (a big seller and now we know why), and Heath Bar (has half the chocolate of "Chocolate Chocolate").   They also had on our testing day a Maple Nut.  Just go on up to the service counter and get a cone, (like we did) or you can also build your own sundae, try a shake or even take a half-gallon of you favorite flavor home with you.  This is dense ice cream, not fluffed up with the air you find in a lot of ice creams - rich and goody!

Lucky for us, we got a chance to re-sample their homemade fudge while we were there and it was really good too. There are around 13 flavors of fudge to choose from - so we sampled the “udder delight” (pecans, white and dark chocolate, and caramel - what's not to like?!) and "Calf Crunch - a delightful blend of vanilla and caramel cashews.

Fresh homemade cookies and Door County Coffee are available as well.  And new in 2004, here come their homemade Ice Cream Cakes!  We are looking forward to the taste test.

Pick and Ship!
You can even pick stuff out, have it put in a basket and they will ship it - especially nice around the holidays!

The store also has plenty of other items for sale in their gift shop. Literally all the items for sale have an agricultural, dairy farm and door county theme. Quality products such as maple syrup, canned goods, cheeses, wines, vegetables, cheese curds, string cheese, pickled whitefish & lake trout (try’em, you’ll love’em), applesauce, pickles and more, all produced locally. Lots of other neat things like toy tractors, puzzles, garden items; candles, children’s books and clothing are available also. Check it out!

THE CORN MAZE
This is definitely a cool and fun thing to do for the whole family, and absolutely a-mazing! The maze itself is designed and cut out of a 20-acre cornfield using leading edge technology. There are two trails, one a mile and a half, the other nearly 4 miles long. You can do one or both. It is definitely challenging for the mind and body. Although its challenging, its very kid friendly. There are six marker stations in each maze that you look for as you are exploring the maze. When you get to a marker station someone is there to punch your card. Whether you get one or all six it doesn’t matter, everyone is eligible to enter their card in a drawing for a Sony PlayStation 2 - cool! The drawing is at the end of the year and like we said, everyone participating gets a chance to win. The design of last years maze was a tribute to Door County’s 150th anniversary. This years maze features Cookie the cow and the slogan “proud to be American”, both mazes can be seen on their website so check them out and put the “corn maze” on your list of cool things to do when in door county.

TOUR THE FARM
The Dairy View Country Store is a part of Schopf’s Hilltop Dairy. Owners Dennis and Roxanne, along with their children and around 25 employees, farm nearly 2,000 acres that includes a farm that has been in the family four generations. State of the art facilities were completed and open to the public on July 5th, 2001.

The new facilities include the Dairy View Country Store and a 400-cow free stall barn all under one roof. This high tech facility also includes a 20 cow-milking parlor in which visitors can watch the cows as they are being milked. Guided tours are given throughout the day or you can opt for the self-guided tour. The guided tour starts in “Cookies Classroom” where both kids and adults can learn all aspects of farm life. During the tour you also see the milking parlor and get hands on experience milking Cookie, a mechanical cow that you learn how to attach a milking unit to. State of the art video monitors allow you to see the free stall barn where cows are maintained in the highest level of comfort before being brought in to be milked. Videos of various farm operations and farm life are shown as well. There are also farm related games for the kids to play and they can learn the life of a baby calf as it is raised on the farm to adulthood. Like we said, whether form the country or the city, this is a fun place for both grown-ups and kids alike. Large groups are very welcome and arrangements for meetings can be made as well.

Over all, we were very impressed with the entire facility and highly recommend a visit to Hilltop Dairy and the Dairy View Country Store while in Door County. It’s located in Carlsville, just about 5 miles North of Sturgeon Bay on Hwy 42 then about 2 miles East on County Road I. Call ahead or visit their website at www.dairyview.com for complete details. This is one very nice Door County “find!”

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