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A fourth-generation apple farm with a bakery, a hard cider house and, on an October Saturday, a car park like a county fair.
Photo: Thomson200CC0
Bill and Adele Mercier started selling apples from a roadside stand on the Blue Ridge to McCaysville road in 1943. The farm is still in the family four generations later, still on the same stretch of GA-5, and it has become the thing a great many people in north Georgia mean when they say they are going to the mountains for the day. That is the first thing to understand about it. Mercier's is not a quiet farm shop you happen upon. In autumn it is one of the busiest single sites in Fannin County, and the queue for doughnuts can be longer than the queue for the scenic railway.
What is actually here: a very large market building, a bakery that runs all day, a cider house, and orchards you can walk into when a crop is ready. The apple list runs past forty varieties, which matters more than it sounds like it does, because it means the fruit on the table in late August is a different apple from the fruit in late October and the staff will tell you which is which. The farm also grows strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and peaches, so u-pick here is not a single autumn event; it rotates from late spring onward.
The cider is the part visitors underestimate. Mercier's presses its own, sells it sweet by the jug, and also grows, ferments and cans hard cider on site, with a tasting room attached. The farm says it is the only apple orchard in Georgia doing all four of those steps itself. Whether or not that is still literally true, the practical point stands: you can taste a dry cider made from fruit grown within sight of the counter.
Then there are the fried pies and the apple cider doughnuts, which are the reason a fair number of people come at all, and which are made through the day rather than baked once and stacked.
Plan for the crowd or plan around it. There is no third option in October.
Blue Ridge Drive is GA-5, the road that runs north from town towards McCaysville, and the orchard is on it about four miles out. From downtown Blue Ridge allow ten minutes in a quiet week and twenty-five on a leaf-season Saturday, because the traffic backs up at the entrance rather than in town.
Coming south from McCaysville or Copperhill after the train, you pass it on the right and the turn is well signed. Coming north on GA-515, stay on the four-lane past the Blue Ridge exits and pick up GA-5 north; do not route yourself through the downtown grid on a weekend.
Parking is on site and free, with an overflow field opened when the main lot fills. In October it fills. Follow the marshals rather than improvising, and reverse into a space if you can, because leaving is the slow part.
From late September to the first week of November, a Saturday at Mercier's runs like a small festival. The car park fills, staff direct traffic in the overflow field, the market building is shoulder to shoulder, and the bakery queue snakes back past the produce. None of that is a criticism of the farm. It is the predictable result of being the best-known orchard in a county that receives most of its annual visitors in a six-week window.
If you want the orchard rather than the event, three things work.
Come on a weekday. A Tuesday in the same week is a different place entirely, with the same fruit and the same doughnuts.
Come at nine. The farm opens early and the first ninety minutes on a weekend morning are genuinely calm. By eleven it has turned.
Come in a different season. Strawberry picking in late spring and peaches at the height of summer draw a fraction of the autumn crowd, and the market, bakery and cider house are open the whole time.
If you are coming on an autumn Saturday regardless, accept it, park in the overflow without complaint, and do not plan anything immediately afterwards with a fixed start time.
U-pick here is a rotation rather than a season. The farm's published sequence runs roughly strawberries first, then blueberries, then blackberries, then peaches, then apples, which puts something in the field from late spring to the back end of autumn. Exact opening dates for each crop move with the weather every year, and a late frost at 1,700 feet can push a crop by a fortnight or remove it altogether. The orchard publishes a u-pick calendar and updates it. Check it the week you travel rather than the month before.
Two practical notes. Apple u-pick and apple availability in the market are different things: the shop sells fruit continuously through the harvest, while the rows open for picking only when a block is ready, and the block that is open may not be the variety you were hoping for. Ask at the counter which variety is in the field before you walk out.
Second, the picking areas are working orchard. The ground is uneven, the grass between rows is often damp into mid-morning, and there is no shade in a young block. Closed shoes, and a hat in September.
Wagon rides out to the rows run in season. Availability, timing and cost are set by the farm and change; ask when you arrive.
Published hours run mornings to late afternoon, a little later Friday through Sunday. They shift seasonally, so confirm before a long drive.
Children do well here and badly at the same time. The rows, the wagon and the fruit are a genuinely good hour. The market on a Saturday afternoon is a crush at knee height, and a pushchair in that building is a mistake. Carry a small child, or send one adult in.
What to bring: closed shoes for everyone, a hat from August to October, a cool bag if you are driving more than an hour home with cider, and more boot space than you think. People consistently underestimate how much they buy here.
What not to bring: a dog into the market or the picking rows, an expectation of a quiet lunch on an autumn weekend, or a tight schedule.
One more thing worth knowing if you are staying in a cabin. Mercier's sits on GA-5 north of Blue Ridge, which puts it on the way to McCaysville and roughly ten minutes from downtown. If the plan is the railway in the morning and the orchard afterwards, that works. The reverse works too. Doing both on the same October Saturday without a gap between them does not.
Straight-line distances, so allow more on the road — the island is long and has one main parkway.
Four blocks of shopfronts facing a working railway depot, small enough to walk twice and busy enough to need a parking plan in October.
1–4 hoursFree. Street parking is free and scarce on peak weekends.1.8 mi away
Photograph: Thomson M
Twenty-six miles of river running to a town cut in half by a state line, in an open-sided coach with the windows down.
2–5 hoursTicketed. Fares vary by coach class, trip length and season.1.7 mi away
Photograph: Thomson200
A Georgia town of about 1,150 people that shares its high street, its river and its bridge with a different state.
1–3 hoursFree. Walking to the state line and the river costs nothing.7.1 mi away
Photograph: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided
The oldest working thing in Blue Ridge: a Register-listed railway building still selling tickets to a train that still runs.
15–45 minutesFree to visit the building, platform side and yard. Train tickets are separate.1.7 mi away
Photograph: Unknown author
Where this place fits into a day, and the pages that plan one.
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Apple picking generally runs from late summer into autumn, but the farm opens individual blocks as they ripen rather than the whole orchard at once, and the start date moves by a fortnight or more from year to year. The orchard publishes a u-pick calendar and updates it through the season. Check it the week you travel, and ask at the counter which variety is actually open in the field before you walk out to the rows.
Very. Autumn Saturdays draw a crowd on the scale of a small festival, with the overflow field open, marshals directing traffic and a bakery queue that runs back into the produce aisles. Come on a weekday, or arrive within the first ninety minutes of opening on a weekend, and it is a completely different visit. If you have to come on a peak Saturday, do not schedule anything with a fixed start time immediately after.
Yes, both kinds. Sweet cider is pressed on site and sold by the jug, and the farm also grows, ferments and cans hard cider here, with a tasting room attached to the market. Mercier's describes itself as the only apple orchard in Georgia that handles the entire chain from tree to can itself. The practical result for a visitor is that you can taste a dry cider made from fruit grown in the blocks outside the window.
Yes, and it is a better visit in several ways. Strawberries come first in late spring, then blueberries, blackberries and peaches through the summer, so u-pick runs for most of the year. The market, bakery and cider house are open throughout, which means the doughnuts and fried pies that most people come for are available in May with no queue at all. The parking situation in July bears no relation to the one in October.
About four miles north on GA-5, the Blue Ridge to McCaysville road, which is ten minutes in ordinary traffic. On a leaf-season Saturday budget twenty-five, because the delay is at the orchard entrance rather than in town. It sits conveniently between downtown and McCaysville, so it pairs naturally with the scenic railway: do the train first, then the orchard on the way back, with a gap between them.
