C&R Produce – More than just vegetables

A little bit of everything

Photo 1: As longtime customer Gwen Richardson knows, shopping at C&R Produce ranges from the practical to the whimsical.  She pays Mark Cruce for her purchase of fresh vegetables under the watchful eyes of her 7-year old grandnephew Zachery Ridgell. Photo 2: Fruit, vegetables and sturdy clay pots are only a sample of the bounty awaiting inside C&R Produce.

 Nearly 30 years ago, C & R Produce of Alachua operated out of a pickup truck.  Today, the local produce stand consists of a building, many times expanded and the variety of products has increased significantly.  But the little produce stand is still selling some of the freshest seasonal vegetables around from the same roadside location on U.S. Highway 441 in Alachua.

C&R Produce has become a landmark in the local community in Alachua. Anyone who has ever driven north on U.S. Highway 441 between Gainesville and Alachua is sure to have seen a somewhat awkward and disproportionate figure in overalls, waving at them, perched against the colorful sign that reads “C & R Produce.”

C&R Produce isn’t just a favorite of locals who pass the stand on their way home from work every day.  Gwen Richardson of Hawthorne and her grandnephew, 7-year-old Zachary Ridgell, stopped in Wednesday morning.  Richardson was visiting her mother in Alachua.

“I stop here every time I pass by,” she said.

Richardson picked out a cornucopia of the freshest vegetables and fruits, some to take back home to Hawthorne, and some for her mother.

“I love this place because the produce is fresh, it tastes good and they have a nice variety here,” she said.

Although C&R is best known for its produce, some shoppers are searching for items better left uneaten.

Turkey Creek resident Lynda Short was on the lookout for river rocks.  The second of her rock gardens is still a work in progress, and she’s waiting for C&R’s new delivery of the stones so she can proceed with the ponds and other garden features she’s building.  Wednesday, Short said she knew the new river rocks weren’t in yet, but she stopped anyway.

“I don’t pass this place without stopping.

“The stones you get at the big stores just aren’t the same. These are authentic and much nicer,” she said.

And she’s right.  C&R Produce owners Ira Cruce and his brother-in law, A.J. Rawlins make periodic trips to North Carolina where they pick up everything from river rocks to mountain butter and hoop cheese.

Luckily for Short, those river rocks and new batches of cheese, butter and other unique products will probably be in stock by mid-August when the Cruce and Rawlins families come back from their next trek to the mountains.

C&R Produce may be out of river rocks, but they have more seasonal produce in stock than anyone could pack into a country kitchen.

Among the finds at the stand are squash, cream corn, silver queen corn, cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, avocados, green beans, pole beans, tomatoes, okra, eggplants, cabbage, onions, patty pan squash, potatoes and new potatoes.

If that’s not enough, have a look at their apples, pineapples, lemons, limes, mangos, watermelons, cantaloupe and ripe Georgia peaches.  But wait, there’s more.  Have a gander at their handmade Georgia pottery, Mobley’s bacon and smoked sausage.  Have a bag of fresh boiled peanuts, or pick up some mountain butter along with wide variety of relishes, preserves and honey.

Over the years, Rawlins and Cruce have become experts at fitting yet another fruit, vegetable or interesting product into their roadside produce stand.  But not even they could have crammed so much stuff into the back of that old pickup truck they started with in the early 1980s.

Three decades later, the two men look back and joke about how their little business got started.

The stand is situated on the same 13 or so acres where Cruce’s and Rawlins’ families still live.  It expanded from the bed of Rawlins’ truck to a tent and picnic table, he said, and eventually into an actual structure.

It had a roof and stood about 20 feet long by about 12 feet wide, give or take. Though there were shutters on the front that could be closed down at night, there was an opening in the back with no door.

Stepping into the open-air shop as it now stands, about three times the size of the original door-less structure, the smell of fresh Georgia peaches assails your senses.  Coming out of Florida’s mid-day summer sun, one might be tricked, if only for a moment, into thinking the enclosure is air-conditioned.

Thanks to the sprinklers misting cooling water across the tin-roofed building, customers find a spot of shade and a bit of relief from the afternoon heat.

The produce stand carries fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables and some others they fetch from around the southeast.  It’s open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m., on Saturdays from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m.