Who knew an ice cream shop could grow into a full-blown meal stop?
This North Carolina restaurant started with a simple sweet idea, but the story did not stay small for long. What began as a local dessert stop eventually grew into a place where a quick treat could turn into a full meal.
The menu expanded beyond the original favorites, adding sandwiches, subs, hot dogs, salads, and other casual dishes that gave people more reasons to stop by.
The business even outgrew its early expectations, proving there was more appetite for the idea than anyone may have expected.
Today, new ownership carries the restaurant forward while keeping that small-town personality intact.
Not bad for a place that started with a scoop.
Deep Run Got Its Own Restaurant In The Summer Of 2019
The Farmhouse story in Deep Run began with dessert.
Ashley Smith, a longtime Deep Run resident who had previously worked as a waitress, purchased an ice cream shop in the Albertson community in 2017.
The shop operated from an old farmhouse, which inspired the name and the country-style theme she later carried into Deep Run.
The Deep Run location began serving Blue Bunny ice cream and Dippin’ Dots in June 2019. Later that summer, the food side developed into a fuller restaurant operation with subs, sandwiches, hot dogs, and salads joining the frozen treats.
By August 2019, local coverage described the restaurant operation as having been open for a little more than three weeks.
That sequence matters because The Farmhouse did not begin as a conventional restaurant with dessert added at the end.
The frozen treats came first. Lunch followed.
That gave customers several straightforward ways to use the place. You could stop for something cold and sweet, grab a sandwich instead, or decide after lunch that ice cream still deserved a turn.
The concept stayed simple as it grew.
The Farmhouse started with a small idea, added food when the opportunity made sense, and turned the Deep Run location into more than the original ice cream stop.
Four Days In The Kitchen Had Already Run Out Of Food
The restaurant operation learned quickly that opening inventory does not always last as long as planned.
After four days of serving food, Ashley Smith temporarily closed The Farmhouse for a day because the available food supply had been exhausted.
The closure was brief. The restaurant restocked and reopened, continuing with the same basic lineup of sandwiches, subs, hot dogs, salads, ice cream, and frozen treats.
That early interruption became part of the restaurant’s opening story without changing the direction of the business.
The food menu continued developing as the Deep Run location settled into its routine.
For customers, the format remained easy to understand.
Order something familiar, find a seat, and leave room for whichever sweet option starts looking more persuasive after the main meal.
The Farmhouse is located at 3486 Old Hwy 11, Deep Run, NC 28525, the same community where the restaurant took shape in 2019.
The first four days of food service were short on inventory.
The years that followed gave the menu much more time to grow.
Subs, Sandwiches, And Salads Keep Lunch Straightforward
Some lunch menus practically require a study guide. The Farmhouse started from the opposite direction.
Its early savory lineup centered on subs, sandwiches, hot dogs, and salads, giving customers recognizable choices without turning lunch into a complicated project.
That simple foundation still helps explain the restaurant’s direction.
A sandwich can handle the whole meal. A salad gives you another option. A sub works when you want something more substantial, and dessert is never far from the conversation.
The menu has broadened beyond that first 2019 selection. Current offerings extend into additional casual categories while keeping the restaurant centered on approachable food rather than a formal dining sequence.
Customers order at the counter before settling in with their meal.
That setup fits the way The Farmhouse developed. Ice cream established the business first, then lunch widened the reason to stop.
The menu does not need one complicated centerpiece to make sense.
You can choose something savory, keep the meal simple, and decide later whether the ice cream side of the business should get the final word.
There is no need to make a sandwich prove anything.
Its job is lunch. The ice cream can handle the theatrics afterward.
Ice Cream Was Part Of The Story Before Lunch Took Over
Dessert did not sneak onto this menu after somebody realized the restaurant needed something sweet.
Dessert was there before lunch.
Ashley Smith’s first Farmhouse venture was an ice cream shop in Albertson, purchased in 2017. When she brought the concept to Deep Run two years later, Blue Bunny ice cream and Dippin’ Dots were already part of the plan.
The savory menu developed around that frozen foundation.
That makes ice cream more than a finishing touch at The Farmhouse. It belongs to the earliest version of the business and helps explain how the concept expanded.
There is also something pleasantly backwards about the order in which the restaurant developed.
Many restaurants build the entrée menu first and add dessert later.
The Farmhouse started with dessert and then invited sandwiches to join the party.
As the restaurant grew, the sweet side stayed in the picture instead of disappearing beneath the expanded food menu.
That gives you a useful bit of permission when lunch is finished.
Ordering ice cream is not abandoning the original plan.
Technically, you are honoring the restaurant’s roots. The sandwich was the newcomer.
The Menu Grew As The Deep Run Restaurant Settled In
Several years gave The Farmhouse time to become broader than its opening menu.
The food side began with a compact collection of subs, sandwiches, hot dogs, and salads. Since then, the business has developed into a wider casual restaurant while keeping ice cream and desserts connected to the original concept.
Current menu information includes additional categories such as wraps, pasta, pizza, milkshakes, and other desserts alongside the sandwiches, salads, and frozen treats that shaped the earlier version.
That growth gives you more choices without erasing the restaurant’s starting point.
A visit does not hinge on one signature dish.
You can keep lunch focused on a sandwich or salad, move toward another casual entrée, or make dessert the part you were thinking about first.
The restaurant’s history makes that range easier to understand.
The Farmhouse did not launch with every category already in place. It began with ice cream, added food, and continued expanding as the Deep Run operation developed.
That gives the current menu a clear line back to 2019.
The restaurant may serve more than it did at the beginning. The scoop still belongs in the story.
Beverly And Lloyd Pope Took Over The Farmhouse In 2026
The Farmhouse entered another chapter in March 2026.
Beverly Cherry Pope and her husband, Lloyd, purchased the Deep Run business from former owner Penny Rouse Harper.
The ownership change kept the restaurant operating in Deep Run while adding another pair of names to a story that began with Ashley Smith.
Beverly remained publicly associated with The Farmhouse later that year as additional small-business activity developed nearby.
The ownership timeline now stretches across several stages.
Smith brought the Farmhouse idea to Deep Run in 2019 after starting with the Albertson ice cream shop.
Penny Rouse Harper later owned the restaurant.
Beverly and Lloyd Pope became the next owners in 2026.
That progression shows how the business moved beyond its founding chapter while remaining at the same Deep Run address.
Owners changed, and the menu developed. Schedules shifted, but The Farmhouse remained open.
And through all those changes, ice cream managed to keep its seat at the table.
That may be the most consistent part of the entire story.
The Farmhouse Still Keeps A Six-Day Schedule In Deep Run
Before aiming the car toward Deep Run, the weekly schedule deserves a quick look.
The Farmhouse currently operates Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday is closed.
Those shorter Friday and Saturday hours make lunch the clearest target toward the end of the week, while Monday through Thursday give you a longer window.
The restaurant today is broader than the small ice cream-and-sandwich operation that developed in 2019, but its basic story remains easy to follow.
You are stopping at a Deep Run restaurant that began with frozen treats, added lunch, survived an opening-week food shortage, expanded its menu, and changed owners without leaving the community where the restaurant took shape.
That history gives an ordinary meal a little more context.
The Farmhouse did not appear fully formed. It grew one stage at a time, beginning with ice cream and learning the rest as it went.
Deep Run got a new restaurant operation in 2019. The Farmhouse kept finding new reasons to keep the kitchen, counter, and ice cream freezer busy.