What makes Knaus Berry Farm such a landmark? There’s a recipe in triumph and tragedy

Cinnamon rolls. That’s what the people come for. That’s what they crave.

So much so that these hungry souls stretch down Southwest 248th Street, waiting and waiting until they reach the promised land: Knaus Berry Farm in the Redland.

It’s been this way for more than 65 years at the seasonal store, which also sells bread, shakes, fruit and vegetables.

But, oh those rolls. Some devotees may be surprised to learn that the golden, buttery-soft, sticky-sweet treats once tasted and looked different.

“It’s not even the same roll that my mother-in-law made,” said Knaus co-owner Thomas Blocher of the retired matriarch Barbara Knaus. “When she started she made a roll that was twice as large. And she put pineapple on it. And then, I don’t know when, at some point the pineapple got dropped. They still kept making them really huge.”

Blocher belongs to a tight-knit family that runs one of South Florida’s most recognizable landmarks. But the owners are now running the business with heavy hearts. There’s been a tragedy in the family, with two of the owners attacked at their South Miami-Dade home.

But after a brief shutdown, the doors to Knaus are open. And customers have reached out in support.

A family business

Blocher, 67, runs Knaus alongside the daughters of the late co-founder Ray Knaus, and his brother-in-law. There’s Susan Blocher, 63, and Rachel Grafe, 66, and Rachel’s husband, Herb Grafe, 68.

This ownership team has kept Knaus a thriving destination in South Miami-Dade for locals and tourists since founding brothers Russell and Ray retired around 1990 and at the end of the 2009-2010 season, respectively. Russell died in 2009, Ray in 2015. His widow, Barbara, baked the original cinnamon buns and other treats.

The family runs the business, with Rachel handling the books, payroll and bills, having moved on from managing the shakes. Susan, who, as a little girl, had duties to pick up rocks in the fields and wash the dishes before strolling across the road to the Redland Farm Life School on 248th Street, runs the shakes. Thomas oversees the baked goods. Herb oversees produce.

“Don’t ask me the chemistry. I can’t tell you. But it works,” Blocher says, smiling.

Knaus traditionally opens the Tuesday before Nov. 1 and closes on the third Saturday in April — this year that will be April 15. During season, Knaus only closes on Sundays, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.

A family tragedy

But in February a family tragedy briefly paused operations for a weekend.

Travis Grafe, 40, son of Rachel and Herb, was arrested on Feb. 18. As of Tuesday, he remained in jail on charges of attempted premeditated murder, aggravated battery on a person 65 or older, and attempted strong-arm robbery. He is accused of beating his parents at their home.

Rachel Grafe remains hospitalized.

Knaus customers are showing their support for the family. One posted a large get-well banner under the shake stand counter shortly after the bakery and fruit stand reopened on a recent Monday. The banner, filled with well-wishes, now hangs in Rachel’s hospital room, Knaus’ owners shared on an Instagram post.

“The doctor has prescribed decorated walls, aromatherapy and music,” the family shared on the Instagram post last week. “Rachel continues to show progress, be it small increments.”

The family also shared on Instagram a post urging donations to The Brain Injury Association of America to support traumatic brain injury awareness.

Other than their social posts, the family isn’t publicly commenting on the case.

A landmark and its devoted customers

Through the tragedy, the bakery is back in business and customers are thankful.

Nora Pinger and mother-and-daughter duo Dora Lopez and Dora Ortega, who say they have been Knaus customers for 20 years, were all smiles on a recent Friday after scoring boxes of the cinnamon rolls. They couldn’t wait to eat a couple. So they sat on a bench just outside the main entrance and dug into the sweets on a sunny afternoon.

Norma Wiebe drives to Knaus several times a season from her home about 10 miles away. She ate from a cup of creamy vanilla ice cream.

Wiebe sat with her friend on a bench near the shake stand and its get-well banner for Rachel. She added her signature to the banner and urged others to do the same.

“It’s a landmark. It’s a national heritage for this community,” she said of Knaus.

The shake stand to the right of the Knaus main entrance sells strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, coconut, coffee, mango, pineapple and Key lime shakes. The most popular? Strawberry. There’s Key lime slush, and sundaes, too.

The U-pick-em fields roll out for acres, tucked behind the main stand. When strawberries are ripe and blazing red, Blocher says customers may pluck and purchase a bag.

“If they pick green strawberries, then we don’t have any strawberries,” Blocher said from a patio out back near the family quarters. The tantalizing aroma of freshly baking cinnamon rolls, along with the Dilly, Honey Wheat and Mountaineer breads, the Black Bottom cake and pecan pies, and seasonal strawberry and guava jellies sold here, drifts by. The delights are more enticing than any TV commercial. Perhaps that’s why Knaus’ owners avoid advertising, save for Instagram posts, Blocher says.

The merchandise speaks for itself. Word of mouth is strong here. Just ask Wiebe.

Wiebe grins when asked what keeps bringing her back to Knaus every season.

“Oh, please. The cinnamon rolls,” she says.

Just outside the main entrance, new Knaus convert Diley Bernal strolls to her car, arms filled with treasure — a box of the cinnamon rolls and guava pie. She said she found out about Knaus Berry Farm a week earlier on Instagram and through a friend’s suggestion.

“I didn’t know about them,” she said. She came from her home near Country Walk in West Kendall because of the cinnamon rolls and the guava pie, she said.

“And they’re really good,” Bernal said as she tried to describe what it is about these cinnamon rolls that made her a budding regular. “I feel that it is crunchy and has that cinnamon taste. So it’s like, unique.”

Evolution of the cinnamon rolls

Bernal may be on to something. Blocher reveals how these cinnamon rolls evolved from Barbara’s creation.

Blocher first worked at the Knaus farm, building strawberry flats for 3 cents a box, while a student at Redland Middle School. He married Susan in 1980 and started baking at Knaus in 1984. Aside from his middle school experience, he came to the Knaus family business after working at a machine shop in Coral Gables.

“Zero experience,” he said. “Just trying to do the best job you can. Learn on the job.”

And what he learned is that the original, larger cinnamon rolls were made in small trays and that the overflow, and resulting burnt sugar baked into the ovens, meant laborious cleanup work in the kitchen.

Blocher had an idea.

“I decided to make a smaller roll and in a larger tray and we charge half as much,” he said. “My personal favorite part of the cinnamon roll was in the middle. So my sales pitch to the people that said this was too small is, ‘You’re getting two for the price of one and you get two middles.’ ”

The Knauses — Ray and Russell and Barbara, as well as next generation daughters Rachel and Susan — members of the Old German Baptist Brethren, a faith similar to the Amish, understood and approved of the cinnamon roll update.

READ MORE: Knaus Berry Farm is a South Florida fall tradition. Here’s how to win at cinnamon rolls

Knaus family history

Knaus Berry Farm originated when Ray and Russell Knaus’ father, Jess, and uncle Harley moved to Miami from Missouri in 1924. The family was lured by construction work during Miami’s boom years, according to the family’s history, Blocher said.

The 1926 hurricane compelled the elder Knaus brothers, Jess and Harley, to return to their farming roots. They grew vegetables on an 80-acre farm near the Homestead air base.

In 1934, the brothers bought identical two-story homes near Knaus Berry Farm’s current location at 15980 SW 248th St. Jess Knaus’ sons, Russell and Ray, learned about farming.

But eight years later, in 1942 during World War II, Germany was blowing up ships off the Florida coast. The Knaus kin moved back to Missouri to get away from the war front.

In 1954, Russell moved back to the family farmlands in South Miami-Dade and started growing strawberries. The flourishing strawberry fields brought brother Ray back to the area in 1956. The two set up a small roadside stand a couple of houses east of the current Knaus Berry Farm location to sell their strawberries.

A fruit broker told Barbara, Ray’s wife, that there was something special and tasty about her cookies.

“When we first started farming, we had a man who sold our berries for us, and he told me if I made cookies and bread, they would sell,” Barbara Knaus told the Miami Herald in 2000.

Knaus Berry Farm opened in 1959. Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House. And in case you were wondering, there is no relation between South Florida’s Knaus Berry Farm and California’s Knott’s Berry Farm theme park, despite its similar start as a roadside berry stand in 1923 and the similar sounding name.

“I would venture to say that Ray and Russell had no idea there was a Knott’s Berry Farm,” Blocher said.

Knaus has remained remarkably similar for generations of customers while Miami, the nation and the world have seen radical changes.

Racial segregation. The women’s liberation movement. The Vietnam War. Man’s first walk on the moon. Watergate. Jimmy Carter, the Mariel Boatlift and the McDuffie riots in 1980 Miami. The ‘80s Cocaine Cowboys and “Miami Vice.” The internet. Sept. 11. A global financial crisis in the aughts. Social media, smartphones and self-driving electric cars. The pandemic.

Despite all those changes, the founding brothers’ crops of strawberries, tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeño peppers, spinach, cucumbers, onions, zucchini, squash, and herbs like cilantro, rosemary, basil and mint, along with Barbara’s baked goods, stayed in the family production. They are all carefully tended by the Grafes and the Blochers.

‘A reminder of the importance of agriculture’

Knaus Berry Farm matters, Miami historian Paul George told the Miami Herald, “because it’s a constant reminder of the importance of the agricultural element in the county’s economic mix and, amazingly, it offers still another arrow in our rich quiver of tourist attractions.”

But Knaus also keeps up with the times. Aside from the years-ago cinnamon bun change by Blocher, some new ideas find their way into customers’ pantries and onto their dining tables. Blocher touts the new coffee milkshake. “That’s a cold-brewed concentrate of my blend of coffee, Bald Bakers Blend. Also hot at the shake stand or 1 pound bags, whole bean,” he said.

“Its annual opening has become a major event for residents and tourist alike because its products are very tasty and fresh and there’s a certain mystique attached to the Amish-related family that owns and operates the farm,” George said.

That’s the historian’s explanation of Knaus’ success.

Blocher, sitting on his farm’s airy patio as the scent of cinnamon buns wafts by, struggles to explain the institution’s longevity through myriad social changes, Hurricane Andrew, shifting demographics.

“Cheap entertainment,” he jokes. “We’re trying to just be faithful to what the brothers did, to be honest, and put out a good product. It works for whatever reason.”