Forty-five minutes east of Dallas, train conductors stop their trains to get a scoop of peach ice cream. That tells you most of what you need to know about Ham Orchards.
It started with a firefighter and a hunch. Dale Ham had spent 32 years with the Richardson Fire Department when something came over him in 1979 — he wanted to grow peaches. He bought 23 acres just east of Terrell, planted 50 trees, and waited. Every tree survived. When the peaches came in, Dale and his daughter Sharien set up a card table on the side of the highway and started selling out of the back of a pickup truck. The railroad told them they were too close to the tracks. They moved above the tracks. The line of customers followed them up.
That was 45 years ago. Ham Orchards at 11939 County Road 309 is now 100 acres, five orchards, 10,000 peach trees, the largest farm-to-market store in Texas, a scratch bakery, homemade ice cream, and a barbecue operation under an open-air pavilion. More than 100,000 people come through every summer. Second and third generations are showing up now. The season runs mid-May to mid-August and it moves faster than you think.
Go soon. Here is why.
The store itself takes some time to get through. Shelves of peach jam, peach salsa, peach hot sauce, peach canned in-season, every jar made on site. Local honey. Pecan brittle. Fudge. Baked goods that come out of the scratch kitchen daily — buttermilk pies, peach pecan bread, cobblers, fried pies. Get there early for the fried pies. They sell out and they do not make more. A whole peach pie goes the same way.
The peach ice cream is the thing people drive 45 minutes for specifically. Made on site, served in cones or cups, eaten in a rocking chair facing the orchards. It is peach ice cream made during peach season from peaches grown on the property, and it tastes like the best version of what ice cream is supposed to be. The strawberry ice cream runs a close second. Train conductors have been known to stop their trains along the tracks that border the property to come inside and get a cone. That detail has been repeated so many times by so many people that it has become part of the orchard’s lore, and it is apparently true.
The barbecue is run by Eddie Deen under an outdoor pavilion, and it holds its own. The peach pulled pork is the signature — slow-cooked pork with peach worked into the seasoning, served by the sandwich or by the pound to take home. It freezes well, which is something regulars figure out quickly. The brisket is the other anchor, straightforward Texas barbecue done properly. You eat it at picnic tables under fans on a hot Texas afternoon and it is exactly right for where you are.
Ham Orchards has been a family business from the first tree Dale planted and it has stayed that way through every expansion. His daughter Sharien met her husband Richard Strange while working at the orchard in 1985. They married in 1987 and have run the operation alongside the family ever since. They are not the only couple the orchard has produced — five marriages have come out of the staff over the years, which is the kind of thing that happens when you build something worth staying around for.
Before the doors open each morning, the employees gather for a devotional and prayer. The orchard closes on Sundays. These are not marketing details — they are just how the Hams run their business, and they have been running it this way for 45 years. More than 100,000 people come through every summer. Second and third generations are showing up now, the grandchildren of people who first drove out on a Saturday in the 1980s and got hooked on a peach ice cream cone.
Ham Orchards is open mid-May through mid-August, Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Sundays. The season is already underway. It is worth the drive now, and it will be worth it every week until August.
