Ready for a road trip to the Pungo River region?

It’s about 100 miles from Morehead City to Terra Ceia Farms near Pantego in Beaufort County, N.C. Happy gardeners say it’s well worth the time to make the trip in order to “shop the showroom” and purchase the farm’s famous flower bulbs. 

Check before you go at www.terraceiafarms.com, because this a seasonal operation with limited hours of being open to the public. (The farmlands are not accessible to tourists.)

 

The Terra Ceia enterprise is owned and operated by three brothers – Carl, Casey and Mark Van Staalduinen. Their grandparents came from the Netherlands and started the farm near the Pungo River in 1943. An 80-year anniversary celebration is being planned to occur in 2023. 

Just a short distance from the farm is the Town of Belhaven. Bring your appetite and experience Spoon River Artworks & Market, a restaurant on Pamlico Street owned by Mark Van Staalduinen, and his wife, Teresa Goerss Van Staalduinen. 

Spoon River has been up and running for about 10 years now, and Susan Stafford Kelly of Greensboro wrote a piece that appeared in Our State magazine in 2021. 

Susan Stafford Kelly

Here is a bit of what Kelly observed: 

“Simply strolling through the door of Spoon River lets you know you’ve arrived somewhere special. The large room, which once housed millinery and textile and hardware shops, has 12-foot-high ceilings of pressed tin painted the pale cream of magnolia blooms, from which an assortment of softly lit paper globes, filament lights and barrel shades dangle.” 

“Yet that’s all a mere backdrop – a stage if you will – for Spoon River’s ever-changing décor,” Kelly said. “Thanks to her experience as an artist and designer, Teresa changes what she terms ‘vignettes’ around the space almost as frequently as the menu offerings.”

 Teresa Goerss Van Staalduinen

(Spoon River photographs by Baxter Miller for Our State magazine.)

“All told, trying to attach a descriptive catchphrase to Spoon River’s cheeky-chic style is nearly impossible,” Kelly said. “It’s a blend of quirk and charm, sophistication and madcap, and wholly unique.”

 

Always, freshly cut flowers from the farm brighten the atmosphere at Spoon River.

“As much as possible, we try to source all of our proteins locally,” Teresa says of the pork chop, lamb and beef entrées. And “local protein” in Belhaven means offerings from the river, sound and ocean, like a flounder special or “The Pamlico Pinwheel” – fresh catch stuffed with scallops, crab and shrimp. “Portions are plenty generous for sharing,” Kelly said, “but before you lift your fork, pause.”

 

“At Spoon River, delicious flavors aren’t just about the preparation, but also the presentation. ‘I believe not just in fine dining, but in artful dining,’ Teresa says. Every plate is more than merely food; it’s a visual, aesthetic creation.”

“Teresa, who describes herself as ‘the keeper of everybody’s grandmother’s things,’ has spent years collecting vintage crystal. Needless to say, in a restaurant where presentation is paramount, each dessert is tufted decadently, not delicately, with whipped cream or ice cream,” Kelly wrote.

 

“Belhaven is a coastal community, surrounded by water and farms, so you can wear your blue jeans or your boat shoes. Perennial boat folks, for whom Spoon River is a regular must, might walk over from the marina,” Kelly said. “The restaurant is a dining destination in itself, attracting gourmands from Washington, Greenville and Raleigh. By car, by boat, by foot, they come. It isn’t simply a meal. It’s a memory.” 

Beaufort County has a curious shape to it. The Pamlico River basically bisects the county, forming north Beaufort where Belhaven and Pantego are located and south Beaufort where Aurora is. We need to explore some more.