Mushroom Monday at The Mushroom Cap

Mushroom Monday - Mushroom Chowder, Mushroom Mustard and Mushroom Snacks all served to whoever visited The Mushroom Cap today!

So great to meets folks from Germany. None of them spoke English but their friend who lives here does. Their favorite Mushroom Monday Mushroom was the Mushroom Snack! Yes, most bought the original mild flavor to take back home to their little village in Germany.

Another group of ladies, all cousins from around the country, arrived at The Mushroom Cap today. One of the cousins lives in NJ - they all decided that they wanted to see the Andrew Wyeth display at the Brandywine River Museum. What a disappointment to get there after driving two hours and after calling to see if they were open, to find that the Andrew Wyeth display is not quite ready for visitors. So, to not make their day a complete waste they visited downtown Kennett Square! Their favorite Mushroom Monday Mushroom was the Mushroom Chowder! Yummy.

The family from Reading, PA and the folks from Philadelphia liked the Mushroom Monday Mushroom Mustard! You really must try this the next time you visit. It is made with our Snack N Shroom Seasoned Mushroom Powder. Now available mild or hot.

All in all it was a great day at The Mushroom Cap!

Far West Fungi in San Francisco

We are tourists in San Fran! That's Louise D'Amico with owner of
Far West Fungi!

While in San Francisco for Mushroom Council meetings it was nice to take a break and take the BART transit system downtown to the Embarcadero stop. Just had to visit Far West Fungi at the Ferry Building. Found some mushrooms there that I was not familiar with but the chantrelles, shiitake, maitake, portabella were beautiful. I must say their whites could not compare to our Kennett Square Mushrooms, especially those from our family farm. Several jars of dried mushrooms and also mushroom powder - great cookbooks too! Hope to send SnacknShrooms to Far West Fungi! They will love 'em! Louise and I took notes -

bringing some ideas home to The Mushroom Cap!

ksqKARMA

A new group has formed in Kennett Square - KARMA - Kennett Area Restaurant and Merchant Association. It is great to have new business owners with fresh ideas and older business owners who welcome their energy and enthusiasm. Kennett Square is a unique town in the heart of the Brandywine Valley. KARMA members will work together to promote Kennett Square, cross promote their businesses and plan events in the Square!

Entering Kennett Square as a tourist you will find many excited shop owners - putting their best foot forward in welcoming you to "Small town America - at its Best!

Just yesterday The Mushroom Cap had visitors from NJ, NY, CT, FL, Philadelphia, Japan and beyond!

No Show Bus Tour

Wonder what happened to the bus tour from Philadelphia that was coming to KSQ today at 3:30pm?
A little disappointing to say the least, especially when one prepares for a group with tastings and a cooler full of mushrooms. We called your cell phone Jerry - three times this past week just to check to see if you were coming. We stayed open an extra hour waiting. A lesson learned - must ask for a confirmation phone call one week prior to trip.

Good to stay open later - had a few more sales for the day!

More visitors from England today!

I am going to start taking pictures of our visitors - hopefully they will let me share them with you. Three young ladies from England visited The Mushroom Cap today and were in awe of being in a room filled with mushrooms! They will be in the area for 10 days - going to NYC for a few days - lucky them! They bought KSQ post cards to send back home.

At the end of the day someone came in to buy my fresh mushroom salad! She couldn't resist telling me about her niece going to Paris, France for a convention having to do with tourism where she was receiving an award. What she thought would be interesting to me was that on the menu at the dinner was a course serving: "world known Kennett Square, PA mushrooms". The niece couldn't resist telling her aunt! Gotta love it Kennett Square! We are on the map!

A peek - at mushroom picking!

Today I received a couple of pictures that were taken at The Mushroom Cap's mushroom exhibit over the weekend. The photographer was nice enough to send them to me. One was of our model of a mushroom growing facilty - the other is here. Isn't this a great picture? The mushroom tour starts here!

Today we had visitors from London on their way to Hershey, PA. They came via Philadelphia and decided that fresh mushrooms would be the perfect gift. Our 3 lb. mixed box (2 portabellas, medium whites, crimini, shiitake, oyster and 4 large white stuffing mushrooms)was the perfect choice. When I asked them to sign our guest book they were amazed at where from around the world people have come from - felt like they were our next door neighbors in comparison! Wow!

Bus Tours on Saturday, December 6th

On Friday, December 5th we received a phone call from a tour guide who would be bringing a group from Union, NJ to the Brandywine Valley to visit Longwood Gardens and the Brandywine River Museum on Saturday, December 6th. Can we bring a Coach Bus to town around 1 pm? Why not? I will call the police department to let them know so that parking spaces would be reserved. To my surprise the police department said we had another bus coming to town at 4 pm that same day. This bus group was from the Wilkes Barre/Scranton area. Both buses were coming to The Mushroom Cap - everyone wanted to visit the Mushroom Exhibit but most importantly several wanted to take fresh mushrooms back home with them. Everyone enjoyed their visit. The first group came from the Brandywine River Museum, left The Mushroom Cap and went to Longwood Gardens where they had plans to have lunch. The second group spent a little more time in town, also visiting the new Flickerwood Wine Tasting Room next door to The Mushroom Cap. They ended their day at Mendenhall Inn for dinner. Hopefully these tour guides will add Kennett Square to future itineraries. Why not visit small town America at it's best? Shop, Dine, Discover Kennett Square! There are several great restaurants in town who can accommodate large groups. Hope to see you soon!
One other note - I asked the tour guide from NJ how they heard about The Mushroom Cap? They picked up a Mushroom Cap rack card at the PA Visitor Center on Route 78!
Wow!

Richmond, VA Bus Tour and more!

What a beautiful Saturday in Southern Chester County for a group of men and women to visit from Richmond, VA. The Mushroom Cap was on their agenda after leaving Winterthur Museum. They had been to Simon Pierce and will go to Longwood Gardens before leaving for home. Great group of people. Most took advantage of our offer of making a purchase of $10 to receive a free 1 pound bag of button mushrooms. Interesting to find that the most popular item purchased was our "mushroom brush". Great little item for cleaning your mushrooms. One visitor purchased our "pickled mushrooms" because our label shows a martini glass with one olive and one mushroom on a toothpick. I asked if she had ever had a mushroom in her martini - who would have ever thought? All left happy - those who did not wish to purchase took a little jaunt over to the Half Moon - uh oh - bus is leaving in 5 minutes - go tell the others. After a short 45 minute stay in Kennett Square they were off to their hotel for dinner. They were warned not to leave their mushrooms on the bus - didn't want them to freeze - especially if they wanted to have them for their Thanksgiving dinner.

Yesterday a few mushroom food gifts were purchased by those visiting family for the Thanksgiving Holiday. Portabella, shiitake and maitake mushrooms will be on someones table in NJ. Visitors were in Kennett Square picking up their horse at New Bolton Center. Interesting - they were in earlier in the week when they brought the horse to New Bolton and knew they had to stop back for fresh mushrooms!

Jenny is going to Canada this week to visit family. Jenny works at The Mushroom Cap and put together a great gift for her Aunt who she has not seen in a long time. Porcini flavored linguini, roasted portabella pasta sauce, mushroom shaped chocolates, italian mushroom dip mix and a few other mushroom related items.

How about our one pound bag of mixed mushrooms? I did forget to mention that two on the bus tour did purchase these. We offer a mix of shiitake, oyster, crimini and enoki mushrooms. This is a great mix for soup or a saute. As a matter of fact we will be taking a variety mushrooms to MI for our Thanksgiving feast. Also a must to take a 3 lb. box of maitake for our friends from Thailand who we will see in MI. They taught us that the maitake mushroom keeps the ying and the yang right in our bodies - great for our immune systems. Be sure to eat your maitake today!