A near-death experience prompts couple to buy beloved Minnetrista orchard

One of Minnesota’s earliest COVID patients, Frank Weigel, spent most of March 2020 in the hospital. His blood oxygen level was dangerously low, his organs were failing, and doctors induced a coma to help him survive the virus’ assault.

During the 30 days Frank lay unconscious, his wife, Esther Weigel, dwelled on their choices as a couple, on their hopes not realized. In their first conversation after Frank woke up, Esther asked, “If you could do anything, what would you do?”

Frank answered, “I want to have an orchard.”

A few months later, an orchard seven minutes from their Mound home went on the market. The couple bought it. That was the beginning of a string of fortunate twists that led to what is now Everly Farms.

Scores of Minnesotans have memories of picking apples on school field trips to Minnetonka Orchards, a pastoral plot of trees and vines in Minnetrista — just 30 minutes from downtown Minneapolis — and returning decades later with their own kids.

That longtime family-run orchard opened in 1976. The Weigels bought it from its founders in 2021, left other careers (Frank in waste management, Esther in design) and slowly made it their own.

They renamed it Everly Farms, after one of their now-6-year-old twins. The couple re-established a winery on the property, transforming the former Painter Creek brand into a broader, more ambitious operation.

The Table opens for dinner with limited reservations on July 24, with a grand opening planned for Aug. 17. By day, it will serve as a wine tasting room with lighter snacks; eventually brunch will be added to the mix. There is a private dining room for events, and a patio overlooking a newly installed pond.

For the Weigels, it’s a dream come true.

“I loved the idea of an orchard and raising kids on a farm,” Frank said. Prior to finding this one, he had been looking at properties in Northern California, where he’s from. “I grew up on a little hobby farm, and that was the biggest motivation.”

In one 43-acre orchard, he found a place that already had a robust apple-picking business, food stalls and the beginnings of the winery the Weigels envisioned.

They just needed a winemaker. And in another stroke of luck, they found Sean Reeves.

He took a class in wine- and cider-making that opened his eyes to a new path. Then, his wife’s job relocation took him to Sonoma Valley, where he studied with major vintners. Upon returning to Minnesota, Reeves worked at Waconia’s Sovereign Estate.

When he drove out to Everly Farms to interview for the job, the place felt eerily familiar. It happened to be the site of the very class that sparked his career change.

“I got goosebumps,” Reeves said.

To lead Everly Farms’ wine program, Reeves is sourcing grapes from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, California’s Lodi and Santa Barbara and New York’s Finger Lakes regions. And he has Everly Farms’ acre of Marquette and La Crescent vines to work with — and plenty of apples for hard cider.

The wine operation is moving into a cavernous new space built inside a former horse arena on the property. “Part of making elegant wine is just correctly sizing and setting yourself up for success, and this room is going to make my job easier, and it’s going to make the wines taste better,” Reeves said.

“It’s a sanctuary,” he said. “It’s where I find peace.”

Next, they needed a chef.

Tom Grittner had cooked alongside his mom, Kari Grittner, at their St. Paul restaurant Tillie’s Farmhouse until it closed in 2021 — a pandemic casualty. Grittner has also worked with Chef Shack on their food truck and catering operations.

In another fateful encounter, Reeves and Grittner met by coincidence in Colorado, through a mutual friend who was celebrating impending fatherhood at a “diaper party” in the state. Reeves then introduced Grittner to the Weigels.

Now at the Table, Grittner is scratch-making every sauce, crust and noodle. He is turning out creative starters (like a summer salad of sliced stone fruits dusted with habañero sugar), one-of-a-kind pizzas (blackberry, goat cheese and merguez, for one) and crowd-pleasing mains with a twist (rigatoni in vodka sauce spiked with gochujang).

Grittner’s Wednesday pizza nights, which sustained orchard visitors the past two summers while the Table was under construction, will continue, serving select pies from a repurposed shipping container-turned-outdoor kitchen.

But with the Table ready to open and the winery almost finished, Everly Farms’ transformation is nearly complete.

Those hospital room conversations are just a memory.

“There were all these things you wanted to do, and I would be like, ‘No, we’ll do that later. Oh, we don’t need another thing on our plates.’ We had careers, we had babies,” Esther said, recalling her thoughts during Frank’s coma. “I had so much regret.”

Now?

Location: Everly Farms Winery, 6480 County Road 26, Minnetrista, everlyfarmsmn.com

The restaurant: The Table opens with limited reservations July 24, and officially opens Aug. 17. Hours are 5-9 p.m. Thu.-Sun.; the tasting room is open 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat.-Sun. Make reservations at everlyfarmsmn.com/thetable.

Plan ahead: There are pizza and wine nights, Wednesdays from 5-9 p.m.