Hale
Groves
9250 US Highway 1
Wabasso, FL 32970
Wabasso, FL 32970
www.halegroves.com
scroll down past the fruit photos to get to website information
scroll down past the fruit photos to get to website information
AT A GLANCE: Hale Groves
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Date of Visit:
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Saturday, March 11,
2017
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Parking
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Plentiful in parking
lot
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Amount of time needed
to peruse exhibits:
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30 minutes, 10 minutes
of that is for ice cream.
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Amount of time needed
for gift shop
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30 minutes.
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The “must have”
souvenir
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Frog Jam, only $5.99.
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Online shopping
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None
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Kid friendly shopping
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Definitely
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Kid friendly
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Yes
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Dress code
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Casual
shorts, t-shirts and sandals are perfectly acceptable.
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Be sure to…..
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Hale
Groves offers samples of their juice.
Live on the edge and try the grapefruit. It might just change your mind.
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Nearby/other
establishments to visit
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Nothing is located
nearby. This is a place alongside the
road, and is a good place to stop when returning from elsewhere.
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Walkability, general
downtown area / amount of traffic
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No place to walk to
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Safety, in terms of
type and number of crimes committed in general area
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This is a generally
safe area. However, practice good
sense and stow your valuables out of sight and lock your car.
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The Florida gift shops that I’ve reviewed up until
now are located some distance from each other, with most of them sited at least
45-minutes from Melbourne, Florida which is my home base, and they encompass several
counties in Central Florida. Driving or
riding in a car or bus is an easy thing to do, but it’s tiring for both the
driver and passenger. I have a DOR
mentality, with DOR meaning “drive on regardless.” It’s not in my nature to make stops along the
way, because I want to get home and put my feet up to achieve total
relaxation. My mantra could be: “don’t make me stop.”
However, something delightful happened to me
last week, and it was enough to change my DOR ways. The temperatures were in the mid-80s already,
owing to an above average winter with temperatures 10 – 20 degrees higher than
normal. We were headed north, returning
from hiking a natural area just south of Vero Beach. I’ll be honest here: I couldn’t stop pissing and moaning about
pert-near everything. It was hot, and my
feet and knees were feeling the upshot of hiking 3 miles in rough terrain. Uphill.
Both ways. I just wanted to go
home, enter my relaxation zone, and have an adult beverage. Or, two.
Every word that came out of my mouth during the drive from Vero Beach
was heavily tinged with my whining: “can’t
you driver faster?” “I want to go home” and “my
knees hurt.” I don’t remember the rest
of my cranky conversation. Our car made
a sudden right hand turn into a parking lot, where I feared I was going to have
to walk the rest of the home as punishment for being so miserable. At first, the parking lot and accompanying
building looked sketchy, so I had to be carefully coaxed from the car. Now, I wouldn’t say that I was actually
snarling, but “DOR” kept running through my mind, along with that nice glass of
wine. Sigh… The sooner I get out, look around, and take a
few pictures, the sooner that the glass of Merlot would be in my hand. From the parking lot, we headed toward the
entrance of Hale Groves.
Once inside, one of the first things I saw was a
sign which read “Fresh Citrus.” Both words were underlined to convey the
importance of this. My cantankerous self
mused loudly: “I would hope they
have fresh citrus, since they operate orange groves.” The word “hope” was vocally underlined to
convey its importance. Black and white
photos hang on the wall directly beneath the citrus sign. There’s a shot of some guy surrounded by
three other men and they are all admiring a Northwest Piper plane. No clue as to who they were, but the black
and white photo made me think that this was important. If it were a placard, it would be underlined.
The inside of Hale Groves reminded me of the folks
who set up shop by the sides of the road selling gator jerky, boiled peanuts,
local honey, and various fruits and vegetables, the difference being that this
was a much larger operation. It felt
like a trustworthy place because of the amount of produce that it had for
sale. Hale Groves has a tasting station
set up, with samples of either orange juice or grapefruit juice. Try the grapefruit. Just so you know, I wouldn’t try it when I
first moved here. Finally, I did and
discovered that fresh grapefruit juice bears little resemblance to the canned
or concentrated stuff. There’s more,
though. A goodly amount of floor space is
occupied by barbeque sauces, handmade soaps, jams / jelly and the like, items
produced by local residents targeted toward tourists and travelers. Amidst the preserves, I spotted something
called “frog jam.” To say the least, my curiosity
ran amok. I squinted at the frog jam jar
looking for froggy body parts, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. I was relieved and disappointed. Looking back, I wished we would have bought a
jar of it.
The entrance to a large storage area is in the
vicinity of the frog jam. It looks like
a storage area for surplus oranges and grapefruit at first glance, and it may
be tempting to skip this area. Don’t. The folks at Hale Groves have fun
souvenir-type items displayed right next to the citrus. Take advantage of the great opportunity to purchase
some unique Florida items to use as gifts.
It’s easy to do, as there are selections of orange tea, orange-scented
hand lotion, orange-flavored lip balm, and orange-shaped sippy cups. Fresh picked oranges are for sale, too.
Hale Groves is a great place to bring children. They can shop for themselves, selecting from
candy, sunburn popcorn or pelican seeds.
To me, pelican seeds fall into the category as frog jam. Do pelican seeds come from pelicans? I’m not certain, and I’m ok with that. Sometimes it’s best not to know. By the way, coconut patties are a big deal in
Florida and the ones here looked especially chocolate…oops…tempting. Yes, that’s what I meant. They looked tempting.
Take some time and walk around a few times, as to not
miss anything. While Hale Groves doesn’t
carry shot glasses, they do sell travel mugs.
I made an exception for coffee cups being a suitable alternative if no
shot glasses are available, so let’s do the same with travel mugs. I didn’t come across any refrigerator magnets
or branded wearables, but that doesn’t mean that this place is still not a
great place to shop. After all, it’s not
a museum or botanical gardens, but a place for Hale Groves to sell fresh
produce.
There are two counters at Hale groves: one for the purchase of fruit, veggies and
souvenirs and the other for soft serve ice cream. The ice cream counter is located to the left
of the main counter, and although Hale doesn’t seem crowded, there is usually a
line at the ice cream counter. Practice
patience and spend the time waiting deciding whether to try ½ orange & ½
vanilla or the all-orange soft serve. I went with the ½ and ½ cone, because of
the novelty of orange soft serve ice cream.
I found both flavors refreshing. It
makes sense to make this the last stop inside the store, so melting ice cream
doesn’t get everywhere. Outside and to
the right of the front entrance is a wonderfully shaded area where sitting on
the benches or at picnic tables is pure tranquility. Let the young ones run around. Take a lazy look at the orange groves out
back, approximately 50 yards (1/2 of a football field) from the shaded patio. So often the fruit we buy at the grocery
store comes from California, Argentina, or some other faraway place. It gets picked and hauled great distances to
be offered for sale at the local grocery store.
We may think that we’re eating fresh fruit, but we’re not. It takes time to process and package fruit
for shipping and this lengthens the time between grove and grocery store. At Hale Groves, I could walk to their nearby
orange grove, pick an orange, walk back, and still have most of my ice cream to
finish. The citrus for sale at Hale
Groves is “shipped” a few yards to the back of the main building, where it is
either put on display or squeezed into juice which is bottled on premise. This shifts the mindset of what “fresh,” as
in “fresh fruit,” really means.
Happy, cranky, or tired, make a point of stopping at
Hale Groves on US Highway 1 between Melbourne and Vero Beach, Florida. Buy frog jam, orange-flavored lip palm and
sunburn popcorn. Have orange ice cream,
sit outside and take a gander at the adjacent orange grove. It’s all good, the significance is
there. No underlining necessary.
Note: I
chatted up a Hale Grove employee who told me that Guy Fieri, host of the Food
Network show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” had visited the previous week. Hale Groves will be part of his show airing toward
the end of July or beginning of August of this year.
A personal message:
A personal message:
Blogger, my blogging software, again
isn't allowing me to post all photos of Hale Grove. Please click the link above to get to the
"Meet Me in the Gift Shop" Facebook page.
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