Farmer Boys, a chain of almost 100 restaurants mainly in California, opened its first Visalia location on May 4.
“We’re still planning our grand opening,” said Krystal Holguin, multi-unit manager for Farmer Boys. “We’re looking at June or July.”
Holguin oversees Farmer Boys restaurants in Lodi, Ceres, Riverbank, Hanford, Bakersfield and Surprise, Arizona, in addition to Visalia.
The Hanford restaurant and the Tulare restaurant (which is under different ownership) have been in business for years.
“I know this one’s been in the works for three years, if not longer,” she said about the new Visalia restaurant. “They look at land, where is going to be a good location. They do a lot of development and research.”
Farm fresh Ingredients
Farmer Boys is different from other restaurants because of its farm fresh ingredients, according to Holguin.
“Everything comes to us raw and we make it what it is,” she said. “Your zucchini comes to us as a whole zucchini. We cut it up into the strips. We batter them, bread them, and make them what customers actually get.
“Same with our onion rings,” she said. “Our onion rings go through the same process. We get them as whole onions, not prepackaged.
“Our lettuce comes as whole heads of lettuce,” she added. “We make our salads fresh every day. We make our lettuce cups for our burgers every day. We slice our tomatoes every day.”
The most popular breakfasts at Farmer Boys locations are the breakfast burritos.
“You can do bacon, sausage, ham,” Holguin said. “There’s a chili meat version, and a no-meat version because not everyone wants meat, and we have a ‘Hog Heaven’ that has bacon, sausage, and ham in it.”
Farmer Boys also offers omelets and French toast.
“Lunch is always good for our Farmer’s Burger, our sourdough chicken avocado sandwich, and our Cobb salad,” Holguin said, adding that burgers are the restaurant chain’s biggest seller for lunch and dinner.
“We go through a lot of burgers, especially with our box deals: $9.99 for a cheeseburger, a small fry and a small drink,” she said. “We sell a lot of those.”
A Visalia welcome
So far, there has been a good relationship between the restaurant and its new home.
“The customers in this town have been honestly amazing to work with,” Holguin said. “They’re very kind and patient and very welcoming to having us here.”
Despite it’s quiet opening, the restaurant has already attracted a lot of customers, especially on some days.
“Our first Sunday open was Mother’s Day,” Holguin said. “We kind of got mollywhopped a little bit. It was car after car after car, not an empty seat in the dining room, and it started at about 8 a.m.”
Farmer Boys in Visalia is located at 4410 S. Mooney Blvd., and open Monday through Thursday, 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.; and Sunday, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. For more information, call (559) 746-5900.
This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Farmer Boys opens in Visalia, offers ‘farm fresh’ food
Reporting by Steve Pastis, Visalia Times-Delta / Visalia Times-Delta
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
