The Oktoberfest Wristband Is $20. The Same Farm's Dinner That Night Is Listed From $120.

Love Farms has two prices posted for Saturday, Oct. 24, and they are far apart. A Harvest Festival wristband for the Oktoberfest edition is advertised at $20 without a stein and $35 with one. At checkout those come to $24.80 and $41.93, with Eventbrite's fee and tax included. A seat at that evening's Oktoberfest Harvest Dinner is advertised on OpenTable at $120 to $180 per person. The listing doesn't say what puts you at the low or high end of that range.

Both happen on one farm, on one day, at 607 Main Street in West Dennis. The place opened last December, and the gap between those two prices comes down to one question. Is Love Farms a farm that runs a restaurant, or a restaurant that keeps a farm? The record can make a case either way.

The Harvest Festival series began Sept. 12 with Tomato Week. Honey, Apple, Pickle, Oyster and Cranberry weeks followed. Saturday is the last one, with an Oktoberfest theme. It runs 10 AM to 1 PM on the patio and back lawn, with live music from 1 to 4 PM. The farm's page lists a raspberry Berliner donut and pumpkin painting. It also lists college football on screens all afternoon, which may or may not be a selling point for you.

The wristband covers the tasting stations, the activities and vendor access. Face painting, vendor goods and food specials cost extra. Everyone 3 and older needs a ticket. Eventbrite's stated policy allows refunds up to seven days before the event, a window that has already passed as of Oct. 21. The ticket is for Saturday only. The Eventbrite description also mentions an "Oktoberfest Sat–Sun, 10/24–10/25," but the ticket and the farm's own schedule list Saturday alone, so don't plan on a Sunday repeat without checking with the farm. Eventbrite's online sales are set to close at 1 PM Saturday. The farm tours are included and run on the hour during festival hours. Each tour takes 20 people, and you sign up at check-in on a first-come basis. Overflow parking goes to the Christmas tree lot, and the festival page says a shuttle runs from there.

The forecast helps, as of Oct. 21. The National Weather Service in Boston expects heavy storms Wednesday night, then sunny, dry weather from Friday through Monday, with highs between 51 and 60.

The dinner page gives the start time as 6 PM. The evening starts with a welcome drink and a guided farm tour. First comes a board of breads, spreads, pickles and crudité. Then a radish-and-cucumber salad with dill and sour cream, and a smoked ham hock beer broth with mussels and rye. Next is sauerbraten with braised cabbage and potato dumplings, served alongside whole roasted pig with käsespätzle, sauerkraut and mustard greens. Black Forest cake comes last. The optional wine pairings are all German or Austrian. They run from a pét-nat rosé to a Spätlese.

The two listings don't agree on everything. The farm describes the Oct. 24 dinner as four courses, while OpenTable calls the experience five. Neither listing explains the difference. The farm doesn't publish a price on its own page. OpenTable advertises $120 to $180 per person, but the final price, wine-pairing supplement, taxes, fees and gratuity should be checked before booking. OpenTable takes parties of 2 to 10. The farm says it can handle gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian and vegan diets if you mention them when you book. OpenTable didn't show how many seats remained, so check availability before you plan the evening around it.

The farm's own account begins with a plan in 2020. That year Dylan Leary, a Culinary Institute of America graduate, planned with his grandfather Frank Hursey to buy a seven-acre organic farm. His father, Dennis Leary, and his uncle, Mark Gentilozzi, joined the plan. The site dates the purchase of 607 Main Street to 2021.

The Cape Cod Times reported in 2024 separate dates for two separate parcels. According to the paper, the family's LLC bought the 2.5-acre Main Street parcel in October 2020 and an adjacent 7-acre parcel on Indian Pond Road in July 2021. So the planning, the individual parcels and the purchase dates land in 2020 or 2021 depending on which account you read. The paper described the Indian Pond Road land as an old farm first owned by the Lohr family. Two days after ground was broken, the reporter saw chickens, Kunekune pigs, tomatoes, strawberries, pumpkins and garlic.

The farm page lists no synthetic pesticides, heritage livestock breeds and compost made on site. The property now has a pig pen, a duck pond and an old barn. That evidence favors the wristband. The tour is the main event, and the pretzel comes with it.

The restaurant's case begins with a shovel. Crews broke ground on July 31, 2024, on what the trade outlet High-Profile called a $10 million, 10,500-square-foot building with a parking garage beneath it. The Times described two bars, a grand hall and a live-music stage. It's run by Pelham Hospitality, the group behind the Pelham House Resort in Dennis. The executive chef, Kevin Curtin, came from Chatham Bars Inn, according to Northshore Magazine.

In 2024 Dylan Leary told the Times he planned to grow about a quarter of the restaurant's food. That would come from one acre plus hoop houses. "We'll need a network of other farms to source because of the volume of people coming," he said. That evidence favors the dinner. The kitchen is the main event, and the farm sets the menu.

Prices are as of Oct. 21. Wristband figures use Eventbrite's checkout totals of $24.80 and $41.93, fees and tax included (face prices are $20 and $35). Dinner figures use OpenTable's advertised seat prices. Confirm taxes, service charges, gratuity, drinks and any wine-pairing supplement at booking.

The stein adds $17.13 per person at checkout totals. The lowest advertised dinner seat, at $120, is $95.20 more than one no-stein wristband, or about 4.8 of them. A farm tour is a clearly advertised feature of both tickets.

So which is the real Love Farms? On the morning side, you get a seven-acre plan from 2020, pigs that predate the building, and a wristband with a $20 face price that walks you past them. On the evening side, there's a $10 million kitchen that its own farmer said would always need other farms, and a seat advertised from $120 to taste the result. Wristband sales online are set to close at 1 PM Saturday, and the dinner books through OpenTable if any seats remain. Which side of the argument are you buying a ticket for?

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