Hello, Friends:

I trust you’re enjoying this string of incredibly perfect days and evenings. So restorative after a season of impactful weather events. It’s awesome not to wonder where we’ll place the table when the days are full of gorgeous skies and temperatures, and we can participate in the changing season by being outdoors. I hope you have plans to get out today. Notice the changing colors, the amber shades, and, later, the crisp air that welcomes the balance of cool evenings and cozy blankets by the fire. I’m here for all of it.

So, September—wow! You’ve been so delightfully full. We’ve planned, picked for, plated, moved, and set the table for over a dozen unique gatherings. Like, 575 guests in total this month alone. Last month, August, was just one gathering fewer at eleven, and in October we’ll host thirteen. I remember back in March, when the only thing that was certain was my turning fifty, asking God’s blessing on another season.

And while this season has blossomed like the prairie taking root across our front twenty acres, I’m reminded that what you see at the long table has been growing for eleven seasons, too. Every seed planted, table set, meal served, and guest welcomed has been part of the long game. It’s breathtaking when you look at it all together. In reality, setting it, serving it, bussing it, growing for it, and filling it is incrementally hard. But there is a joy that works from within, knowing you’re building something incredibly beautiful that will bless others and surprise you, too.

There is a wellspring from which we live that enables us to move forward, season over season. We’re not bored. We’re incredibly resilient, even in a string of events like we’ve had since Wednesday. Every night, the same table: different settings, different faces, new menus. And somehow, for us, it flows from a momentum in our hearts to keep the farm moving forward, seeing new opportunities, planting those seeds, and stewarding them to fruition.

Even today, I’m super giddy to end a five-day stretch of some of our most beautiful and delicious events with one themed around my favorite childhood book series, Anne of Green Gables. We’ll host A Supper of Kindred Spirits, pulling moments from the pages and translating them into delicious courses and vintage tablescapes to celebrate a guest’s major milestone within the world of her favorite imaginary destination, Avonlea. Please let me know if you’re a fan of this age-old series. I’ll send you pics.

Here’s what I share around the table when I’m looking at our guests, delighting in the beauty of the land, the table, and the humans sitting shoulder to shoulder and face to face: live from a heart that is alive and made new. Depend on and trust the Source of that life. Just as we don’t wonder whether the sun will rise tomorrow, we can trust the faithfulness of Christ in us. He is closer than our next thought or heartbeat, and He is our strength to live out what He’s placed in our hearts to love. Somehow, it’s part of His long game—which, ironically enough, ends in a feast, too.

Until next time,

—Mrs. Farmer Jones

P.S. The feast I’m thinking of is in Revelation 19:9, where those invited to the Supper are called blessed. And in John 14:2–3, Jesus promises to prepare a place for us and bring us to Himself. A place prepared, an invitation given, and a table still to come.

SUPPER CLUB: ONE MORE TABLE THIS SEASON

Friday’s Supper Club sold out, and the night gave us everything we hoped for: a table on the patio beneath the stars, guests from across Chicago and the Midwest, and a feast with the story of our beginnings and growth threaded through its courses. With no assigned seats, two guests happened to sit across from one another and discovered they had grown up blocks apart and shared close friends. I keep thinking about that moment. It’s hard to find those connections while scrolling past one another’s lives; at the table, we get to hear the stories in person. October 9 is sold out, so we’ve opened one final Supper Club on Friday, November 20—one more chance this season to pull up a chair and see where the conversation takes us.

RESERVATIONS → SUPPER CLUB

THURSDAY HARVEST HANGS: THE FINAL FIVE

Five Thursdays remain, and each will bring a different taste of October to the farm. On October 1, we’ll welcome the month with family-style plates and harvest baskets; October 8 belongs to apples, and October 15 to ciders. Then comes our October 22 Pumpkin Party, followed by an Art & Farm Season Finale on October 29—with costumes welcome for one last night of food, music, and wandering the market. Harvest Hangs are easy evenings: come as you are, sit where you like, order when you’re ready, and stay awhile. Pick the Thursday that sounds like yours, or come back for all five. Advance admission is $10; children 17 and under are free.

RESERVATIONS → PICK YOUR THURSDAY

If you had told me in 2015 that, eleven seasons later, we’d be welcoming Food Network personalities, award-winning chefs, and teams from Michelin-starred restaurants to our farm table, I would have asked, “How?” Season by season, chefs from Chicago and across the country have heard about what happens when they bring their ideas to this land and let the harvest have a say. On September 19, Chef Sahil Sethi and Chef Sathish returned with the Sifr team for a full Dine on the Land evening, bringing bold flavors and live-fire cooking to our September harvest. It was a dinner they could only have made here, with what the farm had to give that week. I’m grateful for the imagination they brought, and for every guest who came to the table.

CHEF JENN BEACH AND COURTNEY FRALEY

OCTOBER 17 | 6-9:30 PM

On October 17, Chef Jenn Beach returns from Arizona to close our 2026 Chef Series, joined by Chicago’s Courtney Fraley of Faraway Kitchen, a contestant on MasterChef: Dynamic Duos. Jenn believes nature is the true artist, and October gives her and Courtney a beautiful palette to work with. Courtney’s vibrant, travel-inspired vegan cooking meets Jenn’s love of local, seasonal ingredients in a dinner shaped entirely by plants—and full of color, texture, and flavor. We love that our final Chef Series table will send us into the last weeks of the harvest with fresh eyes for all the land can give. Seats remain for this one-night collaboration.

RESERVATIONS → OCTOBER 17

FRIENDSGIVING ON THE FARM

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 6-9 PM

Friendsgiving has always felt like the first deep breath of the holiday season here, and this year marks ten years of gathering our people around an unconventional harvest table. Mrs. Farmer Jones and Chef Whitney Jacobs are dreaming up a feast with the golden, savory, slow-roasted flavors we love, given a little room to surprise you. There will be live music, a hosted bar with spirited and spirit-free pours, and a gift waiting at your place. We’ll light the Locavore Farm Christmas tree together, our little signal that the holidays have begun. Bring your people and come hungry; children’s pricing is available.

RESERVATIONS → NOVEMBER 21

CHRISTMAS ON THE FARM

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12 6-10 PM

Ten years of holiday gatherings, eleven seasons of Dine on the Land, and one last night together in 2026: Christmas on the Farm calls for a celebration.

Chef Jeff Stone joins us for a barn-wide cocktail party with twelve playful tastings inspired by The Twelve Days of Christmas, alongside live music, holiday shopping, and a hosted bar. Your ticket includes the food, drinks, and the full evening, so you can simply dress for merriment and follow whatever catches your eye. Sip something lovely, taste your way around the barn, find a gift, and settle into the company of the people who made this season what it was. We can’t think of a better way to close it.

RESERVATIONS → DECEMBER 12

Welcome to the many new friends who have joined us this month. I’m so grateful you’re here. These letters arrive as the rhythm of the farm allows — with reflections from the land, encouragement for the soul, and first news of the gatherings, meals, and experiences unfolding at Locavore. Goodness is meant to be shared. So we do.