A weekends-only orchard pressing cider on a traditional rack-and-cloth press - a genuinely different product from most Michigan mills, but open Saturday and Sunday only, September and October, with no prices published for anything.
No admission or activity prices are published on phillipsorchards.com. U-pick apples, cider, donuts and wagon rides are pay-as-you-go with no figures printed.
Free to walk in. Your spend here is whatever you choose — pumpkins, food, and any paid activities. That makes it a low-risk stop if you are not sure how long the kids will last.
Phillips is a small, specific proposition and the record for it is thin, so this page will be honest about what is and is not known.
What is known and matters most: the farm opens Saturday and Sunday, 10:00am to 6:00pm, September and October, and is closed Monday to Friday. That is roughly sixteen to eighteen operating days in a year. If you take one thing from this page, take that - people regularly bracket Phillips with Uncle John’s, which is a few miles away and open far more widely, and then drive out on a Wednesday to a locked gate.
Phillips uses a rack-and-cloth press rather than a modern belt press. That is not marketing detail; it is a different process, and it produces cider that tastes different from most of what you buy in Michigan. Fruit is layered in cloth between wooden racks and squeezed slowly. It is slower, more labour-intensive, and increasingly rare.
If you have only ever had cider from a continuous belt press, this is the reason to make the trip, and it is a better reason than a corn maze. There is no corn maze here, no play area and no rides beyond horse-drawn wagons - and those run only on select fall weekends, not every open day. If children need attractions, this is the wrong farm and you should look at Uncle John’s instead.
The farm publishes no prices. Not for u-pick, not for cider, not for donuts, not for the wagon rides. No admission charge appears anywhere either, which points to a free-entry orchard where you pay for what you take - the normal model for a Michigan orchard of this size.
That means the floor cost of a visit is apparently zero, and the ceiling is whatever you pick. For a family of four, a peck of apples, a gallon of cider and a dozen donuts at typical Michigan orchard rates is a real amount of money, and you will not know how much until you are at the counter. If your budget is tight enough that this matters, phone 989-682-4430 and ask what u-pick costs per pound or per peck. It is a two-minute call and it removes the only substantial unknown.
An eight-weekend season concentrates demand hard. Every family in Clinton County who wants this farm has the same sixteen or eighteen days you do, and October Saturdays carry most of it. With no gate to slow arrivals, the queue forms at the counter.
The 10:00am opening is late enough that arriving at opening is realistic rather than punishing, and it is the best crowd advice available. At the other end, a 6:00pm close in late October is within an hour of dusk - Michigan loses more than an hour of evening light between the start of September and the end of October, so the same closing time is a different visit in each month.
U-pick apples are stated to run September into mid-October, varying by variety and weather. That is an honest range rather than a promise, and it means an early November trip is not just a closed-gate risk but a no-apples one. Frost also ends the Michigan fall season generally; a farm that commits only to September and October is telling you it expects to be done by Halloween.
The same family runs a Gatehouse Market in St. Johns, a Cider Bar & Market in Lansing and a Cider Bar & Pizzeria in Maple Rapids. The wood-fired pizza that appears on listings for this business is at the Maple Rapids site, not at the orchard. Before you drive, check which address an event, a menu or a set of hours actually belongs to - this record covers the orchard and cider mill on West Gratiot County Line Road only.
Leashed dogs are welcome outdoors, though not on the wagons and not inside the bakery, which is a more permissive policy than several metro Detroit orchards manage.
Saturday and Sunday, 10:00am to 6:00pm, September and October only. Monday to Friday the gate is shut. No specific 2026 opening or closing dates are published, so the September-October window is the whole of what the farm commits to. For u-pick, September into mid-October is the stated range, varying by variety and weather. Saturday morning at 10:00am is the cleanest run at it - eight open days a month is not many.
One to two hours. This is an orchard, a press and a farm market, not an attraction park, and the activity list is short by design.
Eight or nine open days a month across a two-month season is heavy concentration. All of the demand for this farm lands on sixteen or eighteen days, and October Saturdays are the peak of that. There is no gate to meter arrivals.
Not published. Assume farm parking on unpaved ground, soft after October rain, which is the norm for Clinton County orchards.
Not published. U-pick is field and orchard walking; the market and cider mill are the built part of the site. Horse-drawn wagons are a step up. Call 989-682-4430 if this is a deciding factor.
You can only travel on a weekday - the farm is closed Monday to Friday and this catches people out constantly, particularly those who lump it in with nearby Uncle John's, which keeps far wider hours. Skip it too if you need rides, mazes or a play area for children, because none are listed.
Uncle John's Cider Mill is the other St. Johns mill and is a much larger operation with 21 listed activities, published per-activity prices and far wider opening days. The two are frequently mentioned together, which is exactly how people end up at a closed Phillips on a Tuesday. If you want both, it has to be a weekend.
Saturday and Sunday only, 10:00am to 6:00pm, September and October. It is closed Monday to Friday. A weekday trip will find the gate shut.
No admission or activity prices are published on phillipsorchards.com. U-pick apples, cider, donuts and wagon rides are all pay-as-you-go with no figures printed anywhere. Call 989-682-4430 if you need to budget in advance.
It is the traditional method - fruit is layered in cloth between racks and pressed, rather than run through a modern belt press. Phillips presses this way, and it is the farm's distinctive draw. It produces a genuinely different flavour from most Michigan mills.
The farm says u-pick typically runs September through mid-October, depending on variety and weather. That is a guide rather than a fixed window, so call ahead if a specific variety matters.
Leashed dogs are welcome outdoors, but they are not allowed on the wagons or inside the bakery.
2026 dates had not been published when we last checked. In past seasons it has run: Saturday and Sunday only in September and October; closed Monday-Friday. Check with the farm before driving out.
Admission is free. No admission or activity prices are published on phillipsorchards.com. U-pick apples, cider, donuts and wagon rides are pay-as-you-go with no figures printed.
1174 W Gratiot County Line Road, St. Johns, MI 48879, in Clinton County. It is one of 4 patches we track in Mid-Michigan.
We track 4 patches in Mid-Michigan, 4 of which are free to walk into. Entry here costs nothing, which puts it in the minority even in a region with several free options.
One caveat worth repeating: this farm had not published its 2026 dates when we last checked, while 0 of the 4 patches we track in Mid-Michigan had. Treat any date you see elsewhere as last year's until the farm confirms it.
There is 1 other patch we track in Clinton County. All Mid-Michigan patches →
Map pin is set to the town centre. Navigate to the street address above, not the pin.
phillipsorchards.com
Checked August 2026.