How Farm Pick-Up Works

Three places to collect, each on its own days. Here is how to choose and what happens when you arrive.

October 21, 2026 · 3 min read

Pick-up is free at every location, on any order. The only decision is where and when.

The three locations

Shipley Farms, Vilas. 1699 Linville Creek Rd, Vilas NC 28692. Wednesday to Saturday, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. This is the farm store, where the beef is cut and packed.
Train4Life, Boone. 1434 NC Highway 105, Suite #1, Boone NC 28607. Thursday, 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM.
FA Fitness, Blowing Rock. 7593 Valley Blvd, Blowing Rock NC 28605. Friday, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

All three are within about ten miles of one another. Current days and directions are always on the pick-up locations page, and that page is the one to trust if it ever disagrees with this one.

How to choose

Add what you want to the basket.
Choose pick-up at checkout, then choose the location and the day.
Come on the day you chose. The Boone and Blowing Rock points run on set days, so your order is there on that day rather than sitting indefinitely.

What to bring

Coolers or boxes, especially in summer and especially for anything large.
For a share, a cleared freezer at home and a vehicle that will take it. A half share is about 175 lbs.
Nothing else. There is no pick-up fee and no minimum.

Coming to the farm

Look for the red Shipley Farms sign and the 1699 mailbox on Linville Creek Road. The farm store is where the animals were raised and where the beef is cut, which is the part no shipping box can give you.

“And so the local food system, one, allows you to know directly where your food's coming from. And two, it's consistently raised and handled and invested in and cared for more responsibly than the industrial system ever could.”
Gray Shipley

“The farms that we have access to are just little plot. It's tucked in amongst the hills, and you don't have big large expanses, that you can manage consistently and it's more spread out and it's more disparate. That's what's unique about the farming plus we're in a couple hours off the interstate and kind of tucked up here away from some of the labor pool and some of the resources and some of the transportation that makes it easier to get out and reach customers that are a little further away.”
Gray Shipley

“And I know that it's also going right back in the community that I'm buying it from and I'm not supporting something that's, I'm not sending the profit to a big conglomerate or to a foreign government-owned entity in Asia, I'm supporting my neighbors. And I'm keeping farmland as farmland, which we're losing way too much of.”
Gray Shipley

Easy to collect

Mountain Ribeye Reserve

A box of dry-aged ribeye, free pick-up at any of the three.

View Product

Common question

How do I collect an order, and what are the pick-up days?

Choose a location and day at checkout, then collect in that window. Pick-up is free everywhere.

Authoritative sources

Cold Food Storage Chart, FoodSafety.gov
Refrigeration & Food Safety, USDA FSIS

Food-safety temperatures and storage times on this page are cited to the agencies above rather than to us.

About this guide

Written at Shipley Farms in Vilas, North Carolina: a family cattle farm raising and dry-aging beef in the Appalachian Mountains, now in its fifth generation. No shortcuts since 1872.

Every quote on this page is Gray Shipley talking, the man who runs this farm. We sat down with him, turned on a recorder, and kept his own words. Hesitations are trimmed so they read on the page. Nothing else is added or reworded, except where Gray revised his own words in review.

Nobody knows this beef better than we do. On food safety we leave it to USDA FSIS and FoodSafety.gov, and we have linked their pages above. Reviewed 3 October 2026.