A free, dog-friendly, 160-year-old water-powered mill on the Clinton River - a cider-and-donuts stop attached to a trail, not a farm day, with no corn maze and no u-pick.
No admission charge and no parking fee found on the mill's own site. Cider, donuts, ice cream and bakery items are pay-as-you-go; pony rides are a paid add-on but no price is published.
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.
Yates is not a pumpkin patch and it is worth being blunt about that before anyone drives out expecting one. There is no u-pick, no corn maze and no wagon ride through an orchard. What there is: a water-powered cider mill that Yates says has been working for more than 160 years, a bakery turning out cider and cake donuts, an ice cream shoppe, a goat petting zoo, pony rides, a gift shop, and a stretch of the Clinton River with the Yates River Walk and connecting bike trails running past it.
Judged as a cider mill, that is a strong list. Judged as a fall farm day, it is a stop rather than a destination - and that difference decides whether an hour here feels like a bargain or a wasted drive.
No admission. No parking fee published anywhere on the mill’s site. For a family of four, the floor cost of a visit at Yates is nothing, and the ceiling is a bag of donuts, four ciders and four ice creams - call it twenty-five to thirty-five dollars if everyone gets everything. That makes it one of the lowest-risk options in metro Detroit for a family with an unpredictable toddler. If the visit collapses after fifteen minutes, you have lost nothing but the drive.
Pony rides are the one paid add-on and the one unquantified cost. No price is published. Ask at the pony line before your child has been promised a turn.
Most metro Detroit orchards ban pets outright. Yates does not - it is explicitly dog friendly, and that single policy changes what the site is for. Combined with the River Walk and the trail connections, it makes Yates a walk that ends in donuts rather than a farm you visit and leave. If your fall Saturday usually founders on what to do with the dog, this is the answer within Oakland County.
Two sourcing problems worth flagging, because both can waste a morning. The mill’s own site publishes 7:00am to 7:00pm. A 2026 metro Detroit cider mill round-up instead lists 9:00am to 9:00pm on most days, 8:00am on Fridays and a noon start on Sundays. Those are not small discrepancies. A 7:00am opening and a 9:00am opening are different trips, and a 7:00pm close against a 9:00pm one decides whether an after-work visit is possible at all. Phone 248-651-8300 before an early or late run.
The same round-up gives the address as 1990 E Avon Rd. The mill’s own site and its Yelp listing both say 1950 E Avon Rd. Use 1950.
There is also a second Yates outlet at Canterbury Village in Lake Orion, which had been closed and was due to reopen on August 28, 2026. If a listing or an event mentions Yates without a street, work out which one it means.
The water wheel is the thing to look at, and conveniently it is the thing to look at while someone else stands in the donut queue. Feeding time is not published, but the goat petting zoo is a five-minute diversion that buys the person in line another five minutes of patience.
Apple fritters are the item worth planning around. They are made in limited numbers, and the mill takes Friday pre-orders for them - which is a clear signal that turning up on a Saturday and hoping is not a strategy. If fritters are the reason for the trip, call on Friday.
Yates is open all year, so there is no closing date to race. That takes the pressure off in a way that most Michigan fall sites do not: you can go in November when the mazes elsewhere have been cut down, and the mill will still be pressing. The trade-off is that October weekends here carry the whole region’s demand into a site with no gate to meter it. A weekday morning is a different experience from a Saturday afternoon, and it costs the same - nothing.
Yates runs all year, so there is no fall opening date to wait for. Published hours conflict: the mill's own site gives 7:00am to 7:00pm, while a metro Detroit round-up lists 9:00am to 9:00pm most days, 8:00am Friday and noon on Sunday. If you are planning an early or a late trip, call 248-651-8300 first. A weekday morning is the version of this place worth having - the donut queue is the whole crowd story.
Forty-five minutes to an hour for cider, donuts and the water wheel. Two to three hours if you walk the Yates River Walk or ride the connecting trails, which is the better use of the site.
Free admission, no ticketing and a metro Detroit location means the crowd arrives all at once and stands in the same line. October weekends are the heaviest. The upside of having no gate is that leaving is easy if the queue is absurd.
No parking fee is published on the mill's own site. Assume a standard lot rather than a field, given the site is a roadside mill on Avon Road rather than an open orchard, though we could not confirm the surface.
Not published. The mill, shop and ice cream counter are the built part of the site; the River Walk and connecting trails are the outdoor part and their surfaces are not described. Call ahead if a wheelchair or a pushchair with small wheels is a factor.
You want a pumpkin patch. There is no u-pick and no corn maze at Yates - this is a cider mill with a petting zoo and pony rides, not a farm-attraction park. Skip it too if you need a quiet visit on an October Saturday, because a free site with famous donuts and no gate has nothing to slow arrivals down.
There is a second Yates outlet at Canterbury Village in Lake Orion, which was closed and due to reopen on August 28, 2026 - check which location a listing or an event refers to before driving. Franklin Cider Mill in Bloomfield Hills is the other free historic mill in Oakland County and covers similar ground if you want to compare presses.
Yes for entry. No admission charge and no parking fee appear on yatescidermill.com. Cider, donuts, ice cream and bakery items are pay-as-you-go, and pony rides are a paid add-on, but no price is published for those.
Yes. Yates is explicitly dog friendly, which is unusual among metro Detroit cider mills - most orchards ban pets outright.
No. Yates has the cider mill, bakery, ice cream shoppe, gift shop, a goat petting zoo, pony rides and the river trails. There is no u-pick and no corn maze here.
The mill's own site says 7:00am to 7:00pm. A 2026 metro Detroit round-up instead lists 9:00am to 9:00pm Monday to Thursday and Saturday, 8:00am to 9:00pm Friday and noon to 9:00pm Sunday. Those disagree by hours at both ends, so call 248-651-8300 before an early-morning or evening visit.
2026 dates had not been published when we last checked. In past seasons it has run: Daily. Check with the farm before driving out.
Admission is free. No admission charge and no parking fee found on the mill's own site. Cider, donuts, ice cream and bakery items are pay-as-you-go; pony rides are a paid add-on but no price is published.
1950 E. Avon Road, Rochester Hills, MI 48307, in Oakland County. It is one of 10 patches we track in Metro Detroit.
We track 10 patches in Metro Detroit, 9 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 5 of the 10 patches we track in Metro Detroit had. Treat any date you see elsewhere as last year's until the farm confirms it.
There are 4 other patches we track in Oakland County. All Metro Detroit patches →
Map pin is set to the town centre. Navigate to the street address above, not the pin.
yatescidermill.com
Checked August 2026.