By LINDA CHION KENNEY
The Wolfe brothers have seen it all, from recession to tornado to displacement and hurricane, but through it all their produce stand in Riverview stands in testament to hard work and hope.
That feeling of expectation and desire for certain things to hold true has driven the Wolfe’s Produce Market tradition, where doing onto others what you would have them do unto you has built a community of mutual support.
“A lot of people tell us they like to support small, local businesses, which is nice,” Jeffrey Wolfe said. “In turn, we eat at mom-and-pop restaurants and support local businesses and small local farmers. They’re like us. They have families and that’s what they do: they harvest.”
Jeff Wolfe and his son Patrick at Wolfe’s Produce Market, where country store offerings round out the selection of fruits and vegetables
Jeff Wolfe, left, with his twin brother Johnny stand outside their Wolfe’s Produce Market by the sign,which thanks the community for its support after Hurricane Milton devastation.
From harvest to table, Wolfe’s Produce Market steps in as the purveyor of farm-fresh vegetables and fruits, as well as eggs, honey, honeybee pollen, hot-boiled peanuts, elderberry syrup, fresh-squeezed juices, herbs, homemade breads, jams, dressings and more. Care is taken to buy fresh produce at good prices to pass on to customers, with the aim to support customers as much as they support the market.
To wit is the support Jeffrey Wolfe and his twin brother, Johnny, give to youngsters growing up in the world of FFA, 4-H and agricultural education classes, which, in turn, is a world that gave the Wolfe brothers their start.
As 2003 graduates of Riverview High, the twins remember fondly their days of guidance and instruction from agricultural education teachers Ron Slater, Dane Hamilton and his wife, Karen Hamilton, a teacher at Riverview High, who in 2024 received the Harvest Award for Outstanding Woman in Agriculture, presented by the Hillsborough County Fair Board of Directors.
“We’re fraternal twins, and all through school we liked agriculture,” Johnny Wolfe said, noting that for years the brothers made a lot of friends, meeting growers and pickers throughout the area, including Brandon, Riverview, Wimauma and Plant City.
Johnny Wolfe, with eggs for sale at Wolfe’s Produce Market.
Their uncle, Brian Wolfe, worked at Mosaic, their dad, Jeff Wolfe Sr., at the Tampa Port Authority, and the two men on weekends would take the twins on weekend jobs to make extra money, including land-clearing, scrap-metal hauling, building and tractor repairs. “We didn’t think it was work,” Jeffrey Wolfe said. “We were having fun and those were great memories.”
The Wolfe boys, who own a side business themselves for services such as stump grinding, forestry mulching, bush hogging and more, grew up in Balm, not far from Sumner High. That was before breakneck growth turned the Balm/Riverview area into a sprawling suburban community. As a growing family, the Wolfe family grew its own gardens and raised pigs and chickens.
At the Florida State Fair and Florida Strawberry Festival, “we showed mostly pigs and plants and, sometimes, poultry and steer,” Johnny Wolfe said. “It’s always been an interest of ours, so much so that we thought that maybe we should own a produce stand.”
And so they did, and there it stands at 6005 U.S. Highway 301 South, near the intersection with Bloomingdale Avenue, which on the west side turns into Progress Boulevard. Wolfe’s Produce opened in the spring of 2008, in the midst of the Great Recession, when the area’s housing boom came to an abrupt halt. They hunkered down in the produce business as the phone for land-clearing stopped ringing.
Years later, and, as Jeffrey Wolfe put it, “too young to retire,” the Wolfe brothers rebuilt their market after a tornado struck on March 31, 2011.
When Thornton’s gas station opened at the corner of Bloomingdale Avenue and U.S. Highway 301, they rebuilt again, just a bit south, supported by the property owner, who said, as Jeffrey Wolfe recalls, “You boys work hard; I’m not going to put y’all out of business.”
Unnerved by the wrath of Hurricane Helene in 2024, which destroyed coastal and mountain homes in Florida and North Carolina but spared the produce market, the Wolfe brothers prepped for Hurricane Milton.
“We had these six-by-six timbers and the storm snapped nine of them off the ground,” Jeffrey Wolfe said. “That’s how Hurricane Milton got us. Everything imploded into itself.”
Linda Chion Kenney photos
Twin brothers Jeffrey and Johnny Wolfe, owners of Wolfe’s Produce Market and Bay Area Bobcat, graduated from Riverview High in 2003.
Back to rebuilding, the Wolfe brothers hung a street-side sign that read, “Yes, we are open; thank you for your support.”
Word spread in news and social media circles, and true-blue customers made it a point to support Wolfe’s Produce Market. It was the case as well when major roadway construction at the corner of U.S. 301 and Bloomingdale Avenue severely impacted business about three years ago.
“That was worse than the storms, probably,” Jeffrey Wolfe said. “Somebody posted online that we were hurting and business picked up. You could see people driving 15 minutes out of their way to make a U-turn to support us. Seems like anytime anything bad has happened, we’ve always had a lot of local support.”
Like their role models before them, to help make ends meet, the Wolfe brothers supplement their income with outside work. They own and operate Bay Area Bobcat, which specializes in stump grinding, forestry mulching, bucket truck service, land clearing, tree work, demolition, tractor work, grade work, bush hogging, scrap metal removal, dump truck service and much more.
As for the market, it remains open year-round, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week. Offered are customer appreciation reward cards for boiled peanut and for fruit and vegetable purchases.
“This corner is a blessing,” Jeffrey Wolfe said. “To our customers, thank you for always having our back. As long as we can, we’ll be here for you.”
Visit Wolfe’s Produce Market on Facebook for photos of product offerings, prices and specials. For more on the market and Bay Area Bobcat, call Johnny Wolfe at 813-927-2204, or Jeffrey Wolfe at 813-927-2203.