JD Farms Specialty Turkey: where Langley actually buys its Thanksgiving bird
A thirty-year family turkey farm at 248th and 52nd with a farm store, a deli full of ready-made meals and a bistro that's better than it needs to be. How holiday turkey works here.
- Where
- 24726 52 Ave, Langley (corner of 248 St and 52 Ave) · 604-856-2431
- Hours
- Farm store: Mon–Sat 9 am–6 pm, Sun 10 am–5 pm. Bistro: Mon–Sat 9 am–5:30 pm, Sun 10 am–4:30 pm; sandwich bar closes 30 minutes before.
- Cost
- Fresh turkeys are priced by weight in store; expect to pay more than a grocery-store frozen bird. Bistro soups and sandwiches are lunch-counter prices.
- Ordering
- No online orders any more. Walk in; a free Turkey Club card gets member specials.
- Parking
- Gravel lot on site
- Website
- jdfarms.ca
If you grew up around here, JD Farms is simply where the turkey comes from. The family has raised birds on this corner for more than thirty years, the next generation runs it now, and the Thanksgiving-week scene in the store is a Langley tradition in its own right.
The turkey
The birds are raised without antibiotics or animal by-products and the farm is in the Global Animal Partnership program, which is the sort of thing that reads as marketing until you cook one. Fresh turkeys are in the store ahead of the holidays; the freezers carry whole birds, parts and the house turkey sausages the rest of the year. Our last fresh bird roasted evenly, stayed moist without any brining heroics and made the kind of gravy you keep going back to the pan for.
One change worth knowing: the farm no longer takes online orders for pickup or delivery. You go in. For Thanksgiving and Christmas, that means going early in the week, not the day before.
The deli and the bistro
This is the part people miss. The deli case has ready-made meals — turkey lasagna, pot pie, soups including a proper turkey noodle — that make an easy weeknight. The bistro next to it does house-made soups and sandwiches, with a few tables inside and a patio for the two warm months. It’s a nicer lunch stop than a farm store has any business being, and it’s on the way to everything else on 248th.
When to go
Quiet on weekday mornings. Loud and slow the week before a holiday, and the parking lot fills. If you only want sandwiches, aim for before 2 pm; the sandwich bar shuts half an hour before the bistro does.
Go if you want a holiday bird that tastes like one, or a lunch stop on the 248th run. Skip if you’re price-shopping turkey by the kilo; the grocery flyers will beat it.