Virginia Beach's Thanksgiving Table Runs Through Dam Neck Road and Indian River Road This Year

Customers at Creekmore's Place kept asking Sharon Creekmore Mosley what to do with the vegetables they had just bought. She already knew the answer, because her mother taught her to cook collard greens and succotash in a house on the family's Indian River Road farm. As The Virginian-Pilot reported in September, she and her husband, Dion, responded by building a kitchen behind their farm market so they could sell the finished dishes.

That kitchen is aimed squarely at Thanksgiving, and its timing matters more than it might seem. This year you can buy most of a Virginia Beach Thanksgiving under one roof at the city's Farmers Market on Dam Neck Road. Dessert is the exception. For pie, this November's route runs south to the farms.

Everything but dessert sits under one roof on Dam Neck Road

The Virginia Beach Farmers Market at 3640 Dam Neck Road is open year-round, and the city's merchant list covers nearly every course. Here's how the meal breaks down by stall, using the hours on the city's merchant page:

• The bird and the ham: The Country Butcher Shop is open every day from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and carries Virginia ham and fresh beef, pork, and chicken. Fresh turkeys are listed as "on holidays only," so call ahead at 757-468-1583 to reserve one.
• Oysters for the stuffing or the raw bar: Beach N' Seafood sells oysters, clams, scallops, shrimp, blue crabs, and local fish. It's open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and closed Monday and Tuesday. The shop asks customers to call 757-689-8413 to check what's in stock.
• Sides: Creekmore's Place, Holland Produce, S & H Produce, and Skipper Farms all sell seasonal fruits and vegetables. Holland Produce also sells fresh eggs. Skipper Farms adds Virginia-grown apples, cider, and specialty cheese.
• Nuts and pantry items: The Creekmore's stall stocks peanuts, chestnuts, walnuts, and pecans along with local honey, jams, and relish. Chapman's Gifts sells local honey and peanuts plus jams, jellies, pickles, and relishes.
• Dairy: Gilly's Creamery makes ice cream on site every day and also sells glass-bottled milk and other dairy products, daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Hours vary by stall during Thanksgiving week. Holland Produce is closed Mondays. S & H Produce is closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Beach N' Seafood has the same Monday and Tuesday closures. If you plan one trip to the market for everything, Wednesday, November 25, is the first day that week when every stall in the list above is on its regular schedule. Posted hours can change, though, and the city asks shoppers to contact individual merchants for current times, so call before the busiest shopping day of the year.

The empty bakery stall

The gap in that list is the bakery. The city says TFK Deli & General Store will open in December in the former Seasons Best Bakery space, so it won't be serving yet on November 26.

You can still find the ingredients for dessert at the market, from pecans at Creekmore's to apples at Skipper Farms to a pint from Gilly's. Anyone who wants a finished pie from a local farm this year will need to drive down Indian River Road or Princess Anne Road to get one.

Pie moves to Indian River Road

This is where the new Creekmore kitchen comes in. The Creekmores have sold at the Farmers Market for 50 years, and a family member works the open-air end unit seven days a week. After retiring from careers outside farming, Sharon and Dion revived the family's 3-acre farm at 2709 Indian River Road and opened a market there in 2021 in honor of her late parents, Linwood and Elsie Creekmore, who started the business.

According to the Pilot, the new kitchen is a small building behind that farm market. It was funded by a $48,498 grant: $24,249 from Virginia's Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development Fund, awarded August 18, plus a matching amount approved by the city's Development Authority. On the menu, in her words:

"(Customers) not only come and get fresh vegetables here, they'll be able to pick up a tomato pie, a sweet potato pie, some collard greens."

Dion plans to add fresh-squeezed lemonade made "with lemons, not lemon juice," the paper reported.

Two details matter if you're shopping for the holiday. The prepared food will be sold only at the farm on Indian River Road, not at the Dam Neck Road stall. And the timing is close. The family hoped to be cooking by November, ahead of the Thanksgiving rush, and the Pilot's October 1 openings roundup still described the kitchen as planned to open before Thanksgiving. If a sweet potato pie from Creekmore's is part of your plan, call 757-427-0361 to check whether the kitchen is open before you drive down.

Cullipher's preorder clock runs on a different schedule

The other farm source for pie works by advance order, not walk-in. Cullipher Farm, at 772 Princess Anne Road, received the same state infrastructure grant in an earlier year. Commune Bakery did too. Cullipher's holiday preorders have included apple, apple crisp, apple caramel walnut, cherry, pumpkin, strawberry rhubarb, Southern pecan, and very berry pies, along with sourdough, ciabatta, and rosemary loaves for the bread basket.

The process is spelled out on Cullipher's holiday orders page. You choose a pickup day and time window when you order, and you collect everything inside the farm market. Orders close before each pickup date, and they "may close earlier if quantities fill." As of mid-October, the page says 2026 preorder dates are "coming soon."

That leaves you with two pie options that run on opposite schedules. Cullipher rewards ordering early and has firm cutoffs. Creekmore's sells ready-made food at the farm, provided the kitchen is open. If you want a guaranteed pie, place the Cullipher order as soon as dates go up. Treat a Creekmore's tomato pie as the extra.

The dates from Harvest Fair through December

With the pie situation settled, the rest of the season comes down to a few dates:

1. Saturday, October 31, and Sunday, November 1: The last weekend of Hunt Club Farm's Harvest Fair, which runs September 26 through November 1. The farm's Fall Market sells pumpkins, mums, gourds, Indian corn, corn stalks, straw, and scarecrows, which cover most of what you'd need for a centerpiece.
2. Saturday, November 7: The Farmers Market Fall Festival, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a craft show of 90-plus crafters, live bee displays, food, music, kids' activities, and the Master Gardeners at the Rural Heritage Center and Educational Gardens. It falls nearly three weeks before Thanksgiving, which makes it a good day to check stock at the produce stalls and ask The Country Butcher about turkey timing.
3. Wednesday, November 25: The first day of Thanksgiving week when every Farmers Market stall listed above is on its regular schedule.
4. Thursday, November 26: Thanksgiving. Hunt Club Farm's seasonal market, normally open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., April through December, closes for the day.
5. Friday, November 27: Hunt Club's Holiday Market opens the day after Thanksgiving and runs through Christmas Eve, with trees and gifts.
6. December: TFK Deli & General Store is scheduled to open in the former bakery space at the Farmers Market. Creekmore's market stall stays open daily through December.

If this Thanksgiving has you thinking about a home closer to the farm stands on Indian River Road, or curious what your current home might sell for before spring, Kristie Weaver can walk you through it with real local numbers. Get Your Free Home Valuation.