Jeffrey Schorner darts through Al's Family Farms like a car salesman in a crowded showroom. He brags about his orange juice. He climbs under the packing machine. He grabs a tangelo for a gift box, then orders his 15-year-old son to the nearby groves.
"Pick me two sunbursts," he shouts, sounding like his own father, Al, who founded the company. "Then pick lemons."
Before Interstate 95, Starbucks and Sbarro, roadside citrus stands like Al's lined nearly every major thoroughfare in Florida. They made buying local fun before the locavore food movement made it fashionable, but increasingly, they are a dying breed.
Hundreds if not thousands of family citrus farms and their roadside stands have disappeared since the 1960s -- victims of freezes and disease, highways that diverted customers, corporate consolidation and the relentless pressure on growers to sell their land to developers. Since 1996, Florida has lost more than 200,000 acres of citrus land, according to state figures, mainly to homes that no longer sell like the oranges they replaced.
Only here, in the 90-mile bluff along the Indian River from Cocoa to Fort Pierce, can one find the last handful of citrus stores that offer the stickiness and tart scent that once defined the state.
The land gets part of the credit. It has been famous since 1835, when Douglas Dummett's plantation on Merritt Island survived a brutal freeze thanks to the nearby rivers that stabilized temperatures. Dummett also bred sweeter fruit -- after the Civil War, his oranges commanded $1 more a box in New York than oranges from any other grove -- and Indian River went on to become one of Florida's most famous farming brands.
Northerners like Roy and Blanche Harvey, who arrived in the area from Cleveland in the '20s, could hardly resist. Larry Harvey, their grand-nephew, said their family business started when Blanche picked a few oranges and started selling them on U.S. 1, then the main road running north and south. Now, at essentially the same location in Rockledge, Harvey's Groves is the last citrus shop around.
Like most of its counterparts further south, the store has a homeyness that comes from its white-painted barn and bins of fruit, its kitschy extras (turtle earrings, anyone?) and from employees who have worked there for more than 20 years.
Harvey's displays braggadocio too. The giant orange in the green elfin costume on the roof and the large sign boasting of the "world's best orange juice" might as well be museum pieces for Florida hucksterism.
The growers may sell optimism, but sleep with fear. Harvey said there were 152 members of the Gift Fruit Shippers Association when his father helped start it in the late '40s. Now there are 37.
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