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The Depot Restaurant & Freight House Pub
Overlooking the Great Meadow stands the old Phelps train depot. Historic in its own right, it is believed to be the oldest railroad station in New York State.
Built in 1840, The Depot and its nearby Freight House served the privately financed Auburn & Rochester Railroad, incorporated in 1836 and finished in 1841.
The “Auburn Road,” as it was called, provided transportation to towns and villages that had been ignored by the state-funded Erie Canal.
Its very indirect route passed through Auburn, Seneca Falls, Waterloo, Geneva, Phelps (then called Vienna), Manchester, Canandaigua, Fishers, Victor, Pittsford and on to Jay Street in Rochester.
The average train speed then was 14 miles an hour.
In 1853 the Auburn Road merged with nine other railroads between Albany and Buffalo to form the New York Central Railroad.
After more than a century of continuous service, regular passenger service ended May 18, 1958.
The museum acquired the boarded-up Phelps passenger depot and its Freight House in 1972 and trucked them off to Flint Hill, where today they enjoy a second public life as restaurant and pub.From May to October,The Depot restaurant features daily specials of tasty fare—all it made from scratch—refreshment for hungry and thirsty visitors The Freight House Pub, with a variety of freshly made sandwiches and snacks, is open weekends only.
Both also offer the museum’s own 1803 Fat Ox Ale, brewed for us by Custom BrewCrafters of Honeoye Falls, for $3.75 a 16-oz. serving. Half-gallon stoneware growlers by museum master potter Mark Presher are available filled for $88/$78 empty. A filled glass growler is $15.
Special stoneware mugs and Grieves’ Brewery glassware are also available at the Flint Hill Country Store.
