The sprayer noise started earlier than usual this year, and by mid-June the roadside stands on Center Road were already stacked with strawberries. That is the surface version of summer on the peninsula. The version underneath is stranger. A hard April frost flipped the usual cherry script, the Tavern reopened after five dark years, and the after-orchard hours have quietly reorganized around a handful of new operators. If you live here, this is the shape of the season you are actually living in.
The short version of the thesis: this is not a normal cherry year, and pretending it is will send you to the wrong stands on the wrong afternoons.
What the April frost did to the crop
Nikki Rothwell, who coordinates the Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Center in Leelanau County, has spent the spring on the phone with growers. Her reading, echoed in Northern Express's 2026 crop report, is that a late April frost knocked out roughly 70 to 80 percent of the regional tart cherry crop, with the state expected to harvest around 40 million pounds against a carrying capacity closer to 180 million. Sweets bloom on a slightly different clock and were largely spared, though the picture varies by variety and by block.
The Record-Eagle's June 20 harvest preview lined up with that: cautious optimism on sweets, sour outlook on tarts, and a lot of napkin math among growers about whether a thin block is even worth running a shaker through. Mark Santucci, who farms on the peninsula, told Northern Express that scarcity will lift the per-pound price for anyone with fruit to sell, but not enough to rescue a decimated block.
For residents, that translates into three practical shifts this year:
| What changed | 2026 reality | Typical year |
|---|---|---|
| Sweet cherries at stands | Steady supply, quality good | Steady supply |
| Tart cherries for pies and freezing | Scarce, priced up, gone fast | Abundant through late July |
| U-pick tart availability | Limited windows, call ahead | Casual walk-in most days |
| Farm-stand hours | Tighter, more weather-driven | Predictable dawn-to-dusk |
If you freeze tarts for winter smoothies or pie filling, this is the year to place an order rather than assume you can drift over to a stand on a Sunday in late July. If you eat sweets fresh off the tree, you are fine.
The farm-stand map, by road
The stands themselves have not moved, and the family names on the signs are the same ones the Old Mission Gazette has been photographing for a decade. What has moved is which of them has what, and when. A short field guide, useful only if you already know which turn is Gray Road:
- Third Coast Fruit Co., 555 Wilson Road. The Wunsch family's sixth-generation orchard, reopened as U-pick on the historic Wilson Orchards site. In 2026 the lineup runs strawberries, cherries (dark sweets, tarts, Rainiers), peaches, plums, and apricots. Open daily through the holidays.
- Local Yokels, two stands: corner of Center and Gray, plus 13130 Center Road.
- Warren Orchards (Between the Bays), 8169 Center Road and 2705 Island View Road.
- Santucci Farms, 11789 Center Road. Also a good bet for u-pick sweets in a normal crop year.
- Shangri-la Too Farm, 12602 Center Road. Cherries plus raspberries and black raspberries later in the season.
- Buchan's Blueberry Hill, on the west side. Blueberry u-pick usually opens end of July into early August, and the farm-made lemon-blueberry swirl ice cream is one of the few reasons to keep a cooler in the trunk in August.
- Cherry Connection at Edmondson Orchard, farther up M-37.
- Old Mission General Store, 18250 Mission Road. Not a farm but the fallback when the stand you wanted is closed for weather. Sandwiches, ice cream, and the necessities that have kept the tip of the peninsula from driving fifty miles round-trip since the Fifties.
A useful rule this year: if it is a windy afternoon, check the Facebook page before you drive. Stands are more weather-driven than usual because pickers are working shorter, tighter windows.
Old Mission Tavern, six months in
The other big story of the summer is not a cherry story. It is a restaurant story. Old Mission Tavern at 17015 Center Road, closed since the Bartnick family stepped away in 2020, sold to Stephanie Krupka and Brian Daley on January 7, 2026 and reopened its doors on March 18.
That is a resume worth pausing on. Daley came out of Blackbird in Chicago, a James Beard winner that ran twenty-two years before COVID took it down. Krupka worked at Sepia, a Michelin recipient around the corner from Blackbird. She also grew up on the peninsula and worked at the Tavern during college summers, which is the piece that explains why the interior looks almost exactly the way it did when the Bartnicks ran it.
"Expect the same heart of the Old Mission Tavern with new traditions and menu items."
The new menu keeps mussels on it permanently, adds a steak tartare with egg yolk jam, a Welsh rarebit on toasted sourdough with leeks and mushrooms, a twice-baked sweet potato with salsa macha and goat cheese, a lamb sugo, a pan-fried trout, and a venison stuffed cabbage. Krupka's bar list is short on purpose: a dozen wines by the glass or bottle, classic cocktails with light updates, and a handful of brews. The back room is closed for now, with a possible reopening for private events and expanded dining. Lunch service starts next year. Reservations are already the norm.
For residents, the practical read is that the Tavern is not trying to be a destination restaurant. It is trying to be a Sunday-chicken-dinner restaurant that also has real technique behind the pass. That is a rarer thing than the Front Street rotation in Traverse City tends to acknowledge.
Where the weeknights are
Cherry season overlaps with the peak of the winery event calendar, and this year the calendar itself is a moving target because of the ongoing WOMP lawsuit against Peninsula Township. Judge Paul Maloney's July 2025 opinion awarded the wineries nearly $50 million in damages. The Township filed a 100-page appeal on February 13, 2026, and five organizations filed amicus briefs in February in support of the Township and Protect the Peninsula. The upshot for a resident planning a Thursday evening is that some winery events have quietly returned, some are still contested, and it pays to check each winery's own calendar rather than assume last year's programming carries over.
What is actually running as of July 2026:
- Sound Bites at Chateau Grand Traverse. Free, no-reservation live music paired with small bites and vineyard views. Rotating lineup through summer including Ben Richey, Jesse Jefferson, DJ Marco, and Zinnia Dungjen. The winery is also running a European-versus-estate pairing dinner in the speakeasy under the Inn.
- Jazz at Sunset, Bowers Harbor Vineyards. Thursdays, 7 to 9:30 p.m., mid-June through August. Reservation required and books out. Flights, wine by the glass, flatbread pizzas, charcuterie.
- Brys Estate lavender programming. July, on the same property as the winery.
- Peninsula Cellars. The tasting room in the converted schoolhouse is a quieter Tuesday-Wednesday stop when Center Road traffic thins.
- 2 Lads Winery. Farthest north on the peninsula, cool-climate reds and sparkling, and one of the least crowded weekday afternoons on the trail.
The Old Mission Peninsula Wine Trail runs ten wineries in total. On summer Saturdays the parking lots fill fast. Weekday afternoons remain the residents' loophole.
The quieter stuff residents schedule around
A few things on the community calendar that do not show up on the visitor sites:
The OMP United Methodist Church Chicken BBQ ran again this year with the Pit Crew grilling on site. Log Cabin Day at the Dougherty House happened in early summer with the Blessing of the Chestnut Blossoms, Brendan Keenan demonstrating blacksmithing, and Ann Swaney docenting at the Hessler Log Cabin. Haserot Beach received a new memorial bench in July for Donald Franklin, a seventh-generation peninsula resident. The Friends of Peninsula Community Library are collecting used books, puzzles, and games for their August book sale, with drop-offs at the PCL Carriage House on the first and third Mondays through the end of July, 4 to 6 p.m. No Reader's Digest, no encyclopedias, no VHS.
The Peninsula Township supervisor's weekly notes have covered a lot this June and July: the fireworks ordinance, a scam alert about door-to-door pest control operators, and joint training between the Peninsula Township Fire Department and the U.S. Coast Guard. If you live here and have not signed up for those notes, that is a two-minute fix that pays off all summer.
The through-line
The frost story, the Tavern reopening, and the shifting winery calendar are three different headlines. They share a common shape: the peninsula this summer rewards the resident who checks before they drive, calls before they show up, and knows which family runs which orchard on which road. The generic guide that treats every July on Old Mission as the same July will send you to a stand that closed at noon for wind and a tasting room that stopped taking walk-ins in May.
If you own a home on the peninsula and want a working relationship with a team that follows the market at this resolution year-round, The Mitten Group is a phone call away. Contact Us when the timing is right.
