Rick Weaver opened the door to the under-construction “Julep Social House” like he was showing off a future palace.
Weaver grew up in New Orleans and most recently operated a restaurant in Locust Grove, Georgia. But then he discovered the scenic mountains of Dillard, Georgia, and learned the history of the Dillard family. That’s when Weaver found a respect for Rabun County’s rank as Georgia’s official “Farm-to-Table Capital.”
“The Dillards have done a lot,” Weaver says.
And the influence of the century-old Dillard House Restaurant (800-541-0871) has inspired eateries to source local food in nearby Clayton at sites like Grapes & Beans and the Clayton Café.
To short-story-it-up, all this is why Weaver, 48, and his wife, Lauren, wanted to open a new restaurant on a 22-acre farm at Dillard—a site outlined by white fences and dotted with a newly-built barn, four cottages, a field of flowers, some baby-doll sheep and a few chickens.
“Everybody likes a farm, but not everybody likes to get chicken poop on them,” Weaver says. “Our whole concept is just that refined, upscale, kind of modern farm.”
Weaver dubs his newly purchased plot “Julep Farms,” paying tribute to mint juleps and the “regal” farms of Kentucky.
The land at Julep Farms (706-960-9600) actually once belonged to the Dillard family, which set the standard—and, certainly, the family-style table—for farm-to-fork forays across Rabun County, starting in 1917 when the family matriarch, Carrie Edwards Dillard, founded the Dillard House Restaurant by serving her own meats and cheeses.
“We were probably the first in the state, because my great-grandmother had her own farm,” says one of Dillard’s descendants, 50-year-old John Dillard, Jr., the operations manager of the Dillard House.
“And family style is the true farm-to-table,” Dillard says, “because people would take all the stuff they’re growing and put it on the table.”
Today, the Dillard House features luxurious hotel rooms, a conference center, swimming pools, horse pen and a farm zoo with goats.
You can also take a guided horseback ride into the Little Tennessee River—a journey that proves popular during fall months when leaves turn “a color in between orange and red,” says 25-year-old Lexie Parker, a horse-trail guide. “And a lot of them are like the yellowy-green color. They’re really pretty.”
Year-round, in the Dillard dining room, you’ll find generations coming for the main attraction: an all-you-can-eat, fantastic feast featuring plates and bowls of squash souffle, corn-on-the-cob, fried chicken, cornbread, country ham, redeye gravy, broccoli casserole, calico salad, peas, stuffed peppers, green tomatoes, au gratin potatoes and country-style steak.
“And the cabbage casserole, of course, is our signature dish,” says John’s sister, Natalie Dillard, 44. “If we don’t have that on the menu all the time, there is a revolt.”
The Dillards grow their own blueberries and maintain a pork processing plant. “We cure our own ham here,” John Dillard says.
Still, while they serve locally sourced food, they have sold off much of their farmland. “We got so big so fast,” John Dillard says. “Trying to farm and do a resort became too much.”
TRAVEL PLANNER
Farm & Stay: Dillard House, Dillard, GA; features 96 rooms. Julep Farms, Dillard, GA; 706-960-9600, contains four cottages.
Do: Farm zoo, swimming, horseback riding at Dillard House.
Eats: Dillard House Restaurant, Dillard, GA; Clayton Cafe, 706-212-2233, or Grapes & Beans, 706-212-0020, both in Clayton, GA.
The story above is from our September/October 2019 issue.
