Riamede Farm

Reviews 3

A

A Private User

First of all, I dont think that anyone has the right to tell someone else that they are angry, bitter or out of line here. The purpose of these public forums are for people to express their experiences, good or bad. Heads up, this is a bad one. I am completely and utterly DISGUSTED with the treatment me and my fiancé were given this afternoon as we arrived at the farm. Earlier this week I posted a comment on this page asking very politely if dogs were allowed on the farm. I got a very nice response from whoever runs this page basically telling me that as long as my dog is well-behaved, on a leash and that I am a responsible owner that cleans up after his dog, that dogs are certainly welcome. My fiancé and I packed up one of our dogs, equipped ourselves with dog poo bags, a collapsable bowl and a bottle of water, and of course we leashed up our dog. The ride from Jersey City was just about an hour including traffic. We arrived at the farm, parked our vehicle on the street as directed by 2 farm employees managing the traffic, and proceeded to enter the farm up the driveway with our dog. As we approached, we were told to walk on the grass to the right, as the driveway was very active with people coming in and out. While walking on the grass up the hill our dog squatted and urinated. At this point a woman (one of the employees directing traffic and later telling us that she owns the house/property) explodes on us saying "I cant believe this!!! Your dog just Sh@#t on my lawn!!! What is wrong with you!!! Now my dog did NOT defecate on the lawn, she is a female dog, she squats when she urinates, and if she did defecate I was prepared to clean it up. She continues, "Oh my, how rude of you and your dog!!!" We said to her if dogs are not allowed on the property then you shouldnt tell people its ok to bring them. I think its pretty safe to say that if someone tells you that their business is "dog friendly" then they assume accidents are going to happen. And as a responsible pet owner I will always clean up what I can. She now tells us that no one EVER told anybody that the farm was "dog friendly", that is just simply not true. I would not drive over an hour with my dog not knowing if she was allowed to enter the farm or not. She continues to scold us, screaming at the top of her lungs, turning red and throwing her hat on the ground. She told us to leave the farm and that there is another farm we can go to across town. As you can imagine we were shocked! This woman we was absolutely disrespectful and her actions were extremely uncalled for. From the numerous posts I have read on this forum as well as others, its is pretty obvious that there is a common thread here, and for anyone who wishes to ignore that, I feel sorry for you. No one should have to go through what myself and others have gone through just to pick out some pumpkins, its absolutely absurd. I invite anyone to tell me how we deserved the treatment we were given and/or how this womans behavior was acceptable in any way.

JO

Joanne R

This is a reasonably priced place to pick apples. $1 per person over the age of 7 is a lot better than buying a seasonal membership, since it doesnt commit you to having to come back to feel like you got your moneys worth. Cash money at this farm as credit cards arent accepted but they have an ATM that charges $1.75. There is a free hayride that goes around the farm which you can catch a ride on if you want to go to the more remote areas. They also have free wagons to haul your pickings, but there werent any available when we got there. The fresh doughnuts are really good. If you have children in the 4-8 range, you might want to go somewhere where the trees arent so far apart. I was there today with my two young children and the temperature was in the high 80s. It was difficult to find any apples at child-height unless you walked up the hill. We did and after about 35 minutes, my 4 year old was tired and very hot, so we found some shade to sit down for her to cool off and drink some water. A minute later someone driving a mini-tractor came by and asked us if we are picnicking, because thats not allowed, and I said no were not my daughters are overheated and tired and need a break. He was obviously doing his job trying to get us to move, but we couldnt. I am not able to carry two kids and two bags of apples. He said if people see us sitting down then they too will sit down and that would be bad. I dont know why sitting down for 5 minutes would rise to the level of bad, unless he thought hidden in our apple bags was a well-concealed picnic spread (we had no other bags than the apple bags!) and wed invite all and sundry to join us. So keep moving, kids, and whatever you do, do not SIT! The only other farm weve gone to for apple picking is Wightmans, which is bigger, far pricier, and is crowded with long lines, but there I have not had any employee try to get us to move. If I were to compare crowds and lines, I would have to say both places are the same relative to their sizes: the wait in line to pay for apples will take about the same amount of time in both places, as will the hike to your car. As customers who vote with their feet, hot tired ones in this case, my kids were glad to leave.

A

A Private User

here is a sample of emails owner sent me: If you come here regularly, you KNOW there are no group reservations on weekends. Especially on a peak weekend. So why send a reservation form asking to bring a "group" on Saturday morning? why why why Why not read what was on the website about groups and reservations? Why not cooperate? (My error was not to have just hit the delete button.) I find nothing but irony in your statement that you support "local farms" while simultaneously demanding that it is the job of a farmer to provide your child with a birthday party on a Saturday morning. The growth of agritourism has resulted in children thinking a corn field is a maze, that bison and alpacas are NJ farm animals, that a farm is a place to go play and picnic on the weekend, and that farmers specialize in birthday parties. You or your husband have put up a complaint on the internet sewer. It is over-entitled needy thoroughly obnoxious yuppies like your family that will spell the death knell for this old farm. Caring for the old trees is much too hard work to take grief during our very busy harvest season when we can never adequately staff and are exhausted. I call it retail hell...precisely because of people like you. Bring on the COAH housing! Customer: We were coming with large group and just wanted to give heads up. We demanded no special treatment. We strictly wanted to apple pick. No Hayrides, the owner is obviously unhappy with job and is taking anger out on me. She posts stuff on internet about me demanded special attention. she is a liar. Im not the first and probably will not be last to have bad customer service at Riamede. The whole situation saddens me because I actually like the farm. But will not support someone who feels this way about their customers.