Surprise Date(s) – On the Road with Don and Paula

**Sign for *Shield’s Date Garden*, straight out of the 1950’s**

Up until now, the only thing that I knew about Dates, is that if they went bad, they could kill you.

I learned this from the scene in Indiana Jones / Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana’s old friend Sallah, who noticed the dead monkey on the floor next to the Date that he had attempted to eat, quickly snatched away the Date that Dr. Jones was about to catch in his mouth, saying only, “Bad dates.”

So, I’m sure that no one could blame me for being a tad leery about visiting Shields Date Garden in Indio, California. Complete with a Café, this establishment has been around since 1924 and when we arrived for lunch and to stroll their Garden, I did not detect any dead patrons sprawled around on the ground after eating a bad Date.

Phewf!

Either they were very careful about making sure that the Dates they served were wholesome, or the movie exaggerated the effects of poisoned Dates on Capuchin Monkeys.

Not sure and don’t care.

I was happily surprised to find a wonderful experience awaiting us. First, you will need to endure my requisite ‘History Lesson’ before I regale you with the details of our visit.

The year was 1924 when Floyd and Bess Shields started their little shop and started to cultivate not only their Date Palms, but a thriving business as well. Floyd would set up lectures during the day and his customers would learn from him all about the benefits of, and various uses of his home-grown Dates.

Floyd was a pioneer, at least in Southern California, (because how can someone be a pioneer in 1924 when Dates have been cultivated for about 5000 years in the Middle East) developing several hybrids of Dates, blending the characteristics of different ones in order to develop uniquely tasting new ones that quickly became favorites of his clientele.

What stands as a testimony to both his horticultural expertise and business acumen is Shields Date Garden, a wonderfully nostalgic enterprise that is situated on about 20 acres of extremely valuable real-estate, right in the middle of the very popular Coachella Valley. The Gift Shop has all of the varieties of Dates that are grown there, along with other products that Floyd developed such as, Date Crystals (A blend of dried dates that can be used as toppings or in recipes) and Date Sugar, (a sweet product that can be substituted for regular sugar in some recipes, with all of the health benefits of its fruity source).

What you don’t necessarily expect at a stop like this is a restaurant of the highest caliber. The Café is as popular as the store is and after eating there, the reasons were evident. For a restaurant to succeed, no less excel, it needs to be above expectation’s in any two of three aspects: quality of the food, service level, and ambiance. An establishment can survive with any two of these being great and the third being average. The Café at Shields Date Garden excels at all three! The menu was more varied than I would have expected and judging by the popularity of the Café, it all seems to work nicely. Paula had a very fresh grilled chicken salad and I figured that I needed to try something with Non-Poisonous Dates in it, so I chose Pancakes (Homemade with Date ‘flour’) and a Date ‘Butter’ that has tons of applications.

When lunch was finished, we strolled through their Date Orchard and Gardens.

The Pond with the Santa Rosa Mountains in the background

What immediately came to the forefront was how devout the Shield’s must have been because there, sprinkled around the Walk, were various statues of Christ interacting with other figures of the New Testament. It was very well done and I’m quite sure that these concrete statuaries were made specifically for the Shields. I could detect no evidence of any mass-production.