Schultz Fruitridge Farms' Fall Kick-Off and 75th Anniversary Celebration at the County Road 652 farm market was scheduled for September 12, the second of three anniversary events planned by the family this year. Most people in Mattawan know Schultz Fruitridge as the place you go for peaches in July and a pumpkin in October. Fewer know that the same last name is on the cider you might have had at a wedding in Texas Corners or the wine list at a tasting room in Lawton. The farm turning 75 didn't just survive three generations. It became the root system for a chunk of the beverage scene between Mattawan and Kalamazoo, and that's a more interesting story than a birthday party.
Understanding how a 500-acre fruit operation ended up owning a brewery and a winery tells you something about how this village actually works. It isn't one anchor business and a scattering of chains. It's a small number of families who took one storefront and quietly built something larger around it, more than once.
Three Generations, One Farm
Victor and Dorothy Schultz bought the land in 1951 for a specific reason. In a Brownfield Ag News report, Robyn Schultz, part of the family's third generation, said her grandparents purchased it "because it had a peach crop that year and many other farms in the area didn't." That kind of practical, weather-driven decision is easy to forget once a farm has been running for 75 years, but it offers a glimpse of the farm's early history.
The operation grew from there into a 500-acre farm raising apples, cherries, peaches, grapes, asparagus, and sweet corn, split between commercial production and the retail market on County Road 652 that's open every April through October. Bill Schultz, Victor's son, runs it now alongside his own sons, the third generation the family keeps referencing in interviews. That's the part of the story most Mattawan residents already have some version of. The part worth sitting with is what the family did with the rest of the land.
The Same Name Shows Up in Your Glass
The Schultz family operates Texas Corners Brewing Company and, since 2023, owns Lawton Ridge Winery. Andrew Schultz, one of the farm's grandchildren, runs the cider program at Texas Corners using apples grown on 35 acres of the family's own orchards. He's described the 2023 winery purchase as the point where the operation could take cider and wine more seriously, adding the capacity to do single-varietal releases instead of just blending everything together.
That's a different kind of business than most farm stands attempt. A lot of family farms sell fruit and stop there. This one turned its own orchard into a supply chain for two separate beverage businesses under two different roofs.
| Business | What it does | Family connection |
|---|---|---|
| Schultz Fruitridge Farms | Fruit and vegetable farm and retail market, Mattawan | Founded 1951 by Victor and Dorothy Schultz |
| Texas Corners Brewing Co. | Craft beer and cider | Run by Andrew Schultz, third generation |
| Lawton Ridge Winery | Wine, purchased 2023 | Owned by the Schultz family |
If you've had a Texas Corners cider without knowing where the apples came from, you've been drinking Mattawan produce without realizing it.
Three Events Mark the 75th Anniversary
The 75th year is being marked in three parts, not one big weekend:
- August 8 — Savory Summer & 75th Anniversary Celebration, already behind us
- September 12 — Fall Kick-Off and 75th Anniversary Celebration
- October 17 — Fall Family Fun Day & 75th Anniversary Celebration, the harvest-season closer
Spacing the celebration across three months instead of packing it into one festival weekend means the farm's anniversary functions less like an event and more like a season-long backdrop. If you missed August or September 12, October is still ahead.
A Second Family, Same Blueprint
The Schultz family isn't the only one in Mattawan running this playbook. A Grand Rapids Magazine profile reports that in 2018, Chef Matt Bush and his wife Allison Maxwell found a building on Murray Street and turned it into Bird Dog, a scratch-kitchen restaurant so small it opened with six tables inside, ten bar seats, and a patio with three heated igloos to get through winter. It worked. Once Bird Dog found its footing, the couple opened Dog & the Bank in Plainwell in 2022, then Lady Bird in Saugatuck in 2024.
That's the same shape as the Schultz story. One small storefront in Mattawan became the base for something that now stretches across three towns. Both families' businesses have extended beyond the village.
What Runs in the Background Every Week
Between the anniversary dates and the restaurant openings, the calendar that actually structures a Mattawan week hasn't changed much. The Mattawan Farmers Market sets up downtown on Wednesdays from 3 to 7, mixing local growers and producers with the kind of small-batch goods you won't find at Town & Country Supermarket. Main St. Pub, part of the regional Houz Restaurant Group that also runs locations in Portage and Vicksburg, hosts a trivia night every Tuesday that's been a fixture long enough that regulars have teams. Murray Street Brewing Co. keeps a taproom going a few doors from Bird Dog. Cozy Egg Café covers breakfast and lunch in a space small enough that a Saturday morning crowd spills toward the door. Casa Tequila handles the Mexican food end of things on City Center Circle.
For something that costs nothing and doesn't require a reservation, the trails at Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery are an easy weekend stop, close enough to combine with a stop at the farm market without burning a whole day.
The Pattern Underneath the Party
None of this means Mattawan suddenly has more restaurants than it can support or that the anniversary calendar is the only thing worth knowing about the village. It means something more specific: a village this size usually gets its identity from one dominant business or a strip of chain storefronts. Mattawan got its identity instead from a small number of families who took a single address and expanded outward, the Schultzes from a fruit stand into two beverage brands, Bush and Maxwell from six tables into three restaurants across three towns.
That's worth knowing if you already live here: these family businesses offer one example of how the food and drink scene can grow without a matching population boom. Concentrated ownership is part of the pattern here.
If you're weighing what daily life looks like here against a move from somewhere else, we've mapped the space, commute, and weekend rhythm of Mattawan in more detail in an earlier piece.
Rodriguez Homes covers the towns of West Michigan the way residents actually experience them, not just the way listings describe them. If you're curious what your Mattawan home is worth in the current market, or you want a local read on where the village is headed next, Rodriguez Homes is a call away.
