Table of contents
At Vala’s Pumpkin Patch & Apple Orchard, we want to create a special place that guests return to each year when the air gets a little crisp, like a tradition. We’re open for two months out of the year, so it’s not your average business model. But figuring out how to get people more value for their admission and excite them about what new thing we’ll have next year is the most fun part of the job. And it’s how my parents turned Vala’s Pumpkin Patch & Apple Orchard into one of the biggest fall festivals — not just in Nebraska, but the whole country.
In 1984, my dad started the business by leasing about 10 acres of farmland to grow strawberries. Today, Vala’s is a 450-acre agritainment farm, featuring food, cider, agriculture, rides, attractions and entertainment. We’re open to the public for September and October, and during that time, our team grows from our 50 year-round employees to nearly 1,500 seasonal employees. We typically welcome about 15,000 to 20,000 customers on a busy Saturday.
Operating seasonally gives us time to make sure the farm is an authentic working agricultural-based business. It also lets us add something new every year, so when guests come back in the fall, they see we’ve reinvested. We do remodels, set goals for the next year, and see what worked versus what we can improve on. My father set an example for my sisters Kirsten, Kyla, and I as the second generation running the farm. His motto: Do what you do well, and reinvest in the business constantly. Here are four lessons my parents passed down to us to sustain a thriving seasonal business.
1. Trust your customers — lean into what works and build on it
When my dad first started the farm, he grew strawberries and a few vegetables in hopes of building a small, sustainable vegetable stand and u-pick operation. Part of that mix included pumpkins that he forgot that he planted until fall came and a few started to sprout out of some weeds. He had just enough pumpkins to fill one pickup truck, which he drove to town and sold at his farm market stand. The second year, he accidentally grew too many pumpkins to put in the back of a pick up truck and haul to the vegetable stand. So, he put an ad in the paper inviting people to pick their own and take hay rides with their kids.
It turns out, those extra pumpkins were the seeds for a generational business. He saw firsthand how happy the farm experience made the families. He got so much positive feedback compared to the strawberries (which were either too green, over-ripe, or the picking process caused back pain) that he pivoted to pumpkins. He decided to stop doing strawberries, and just focus on the fall season and growing pumpkins. According to my dad, a focused approach to our business has been a huge part of our success over the years.
My dad traveled to pumpkin farms in neighboring states and visited one that operated like a theme park. That’s when the lightbulb went off to double down on all things fall-related. Today, people know that Vala’s is only open in September and October and that’s part of what makes it special. If they want to experience our corn maze and amusement park rides and enjoy fresh cider, caramel apples, kettle corn, turkey legs and pies galore, they have to come in the fall.
Over the years, we’ve experimented with other offerings. My dad used to run a summer farm stand selling corn and other vegetables he grew. And a few years ago, we experimented with weddings in the off-season. Ultimately, we decided to focus our attention on what we’re really good at, and do that to the max, because it always delights the guests and adds to their experience.
2. Understand that the season may end, but the work goes on
When Vala’s closes to the public in November, the team keeps working. We operate 25 food facilities across the farm, offering everything from barbecue, burgers, fresh squeezed lemonade. Each establishment takes work to close and maintain. Then we get ready for the year ahead. Vala’s employs about 50 full-time staff that work year-round. They all know that December is when we set budgets and goals, and the pressure starts to build for the next season.
We follow plans scoped out one, three, and five years in advance. It seems like as we’ve grown bigger, our investments need to get bigger, and we use the offseason to assess if what we’re planning will add value to the cost of admission. So we keep our team busy, and we’re always challenging ourselves to come up with new, creative concepts.
Recently, we saw an opportunity to make the most of our 40-acre apple orchard by pressing our own cider. We built a beautiful cider mill, where guests can enjoy both fresh cider and hard cider, all while watching the apple pressing process. That took a ton of effort and if we had done construction while families were picking apples during the on-season, it would have taken away from the experience. Today, there are lots of houses going up around us, so we’re talking about something that would complement that business, like a restaurant. The offseason gives us the headspace to plan, look at our data and experiment.
3. Continue reinvesting in your business in smart ways
My dad has always understood the importance of investing in the business. That very first year visitors came out to the pumpkin patch, he bought his first hay rack so he could offer guests hay rack rides on the farm (he actually advertised the hay rides in the paper before he made the purchase). In those early years, a lot of his investments were based on hunches. Today, it’s more methodical. We’re using Square Dashboard reporting tools to look at where the opportunities are, where we’re seeing a lot of growth in certain sectors of the business and we make all of the decisions that way. You can see trends come and go, but you can also see what people are spending their money on in real time. We try to make decisions both immediately and for the long-term based on our guests’ spending habits.
For example, we know fruit pies and pot pies are popular. Ten years ago, my parents had an opportunity to preserve a beautiful old barn and turn it into a massive kitchen to make pies from scratch. I like to joke that that’s how they lured me into the business, since I’d just graduated from culinary school. Now we sell about 1,000 pies on a busy day. That was our first $1 million project, and it’s helped us stand apart and create a unique experience for our guests that they can only get at Vala’s.
As a family, we’re always assessing what we think will delight our guests next. At the end of the day, if we can put in something we think is going to add value to the cost of admission, add to the experience on the farm and make people happy, that’s what we’re looking to do.
4. Hire people who share your values, and give them tools to succeed
One of the keys to Vala’s success is our great staff. We make sure they understand the history of the farm and they really buy into who we are. Each of our 1,400 seasonal staff might not know us all as a family, but we do share with them our Core Values: Act with Integrity, Pull the Wagon (Teamwork!), Keep Growing and Go the Extra Mile. This helps them understand the experience we’re trying to provide. We emphasize the importance of hospitality and creating magical memories for our guests. We remind them that the reason people return year after year, generation after generation, is because of the memories they create out here.
When we’re ramping up from the summer to the fall, that means going from maybe 50 people on the farm per day to thousands. When the business first started, my mom would interview all of the seasonal staff individually at our kitchen table. Now, we have a whole team that handles hiring, and we rely on Square tools to help us assess sales across our various departments, so we can set hiring and labor goals.
Today, our team hires and trains 1,400 to 1,500 seasonal employees. About one-third of those seasonal hires are cashiers, and thankfully, our point of sale system is user friendly and easy to train people on. It’s also standard across our many lines of business, including restaurants and retail. It’s easy for us to add new lines of business each year; we can simply add a Square terminal and the new entity is up and running. To see where we were in the beginning and where we are now, the growth is quite amazing. This past summer, we started doing a farmer’s market for the first time to sell pies and cider. It looks a little different than the vegetable stand my dad started 40 years ago selling pumpkins.
Do what you do best, to the max
My sisters and I grew up on the farm, so we know it inside and out. Early on, we had opportunities to work in the business. I ran my own face-painting booth and a food stand. I think it sparked the entrepreneur in me and gave me business knowledge and hands-on experience that was invaluable. At the same time, we also grew up watching all the hard work our parents put into the farm, and the progression of the growth of the business as a result.
It’s important to remember that we started small. We built towards what we are today one idea at a time. And each idea was about improving the overall experience of the farm and appreciating the agriculture of Nebraska. If you pass on your success to your guests by reinvesting in your business, they’ll reward you tenfold.
I take a lot of pride in Vala’s. It’s something that I want to carry on for the sake of our community, for the employees that support us, and for all the families that come out each fall and build their traditions around us. And, of course, it’s something I want to carry on for my family. My sisters and I hope to keep this business growing for another 40 years, and then pass it on to our children.
