People's Cider Co. joins Long Road Distillery, Mitten Brewing Co. with new Leonard St. tasting room

When it comes to plans for The Peoples Cider Co.’s new urban tasting room at 539 Leonard St. NW, owner Jason Lummen says collaboration is the name of the game.

Located on the same corner as Mitten Brewing Co. at 527 Leonard St. NW and next door to craft spirits maker Long Road Distillers at 537 Leonard St. NW, it’s the good company that ultimately inspired Lummen to move his current tasting room out of his Eastown production facility and into its own modest 400-square-foot storefront across town.

“When the opportunity came to me to put the tasting room in the next door, I jumped at it,” says Lummen, who used to sell some of his ciders wholesale to Mitten Brewery and supplied cider to Long Road Distillery for its apple brandy. “There’s a whole bunch of nice guys over there, and we all just get along.”

He says the various collaborations between the three alcoholic beverage makers — a brewery, distillery and cidery — are unique in the way they are completely unrelated, owned and operated by separate individuals with no prior connections.

“As far as we know, it doesn’t exist anywhere, having those three things in a row independently,” Lummen says. “They might have a large company come into a place and do that with a distillery and brewery or something like that, but as far as we know there isn’t anything like that with three consecutive addresses and three very different, independently opened businesses.” 

Though he’s still waiting on approval from the city planning and liquor control commissions, he expects to get the official green light to move ahead with the planning process after the Feb. 11 Grand Rapids Planning Commission meeting and have his new digs open by May 1.

“This is a really small business,” says Lummen, who alongside his wife has operated The Peoples Cider Co. as a full-time job for the past four years with no additional employees. “With this expansion comes the hiring of our first employee and that kind of thing, and so we’re really just getting started.”

He says the space won’t require any major structural renovations, mostly just some cosmetic improvements to reflect the The Peoples Cider Co. brand in a welcoming neighborhood he says is not too unlike the Eastown streets he grew up on.

“It’s a vibrant neighborhood and an old city neighborhood,” Lummens says. “Growing up as an Eastown kid, I appreciate that old city neighborhood feel; the traditional business district with the houses around it that people can walk from to come get a drink.”

He says he sees the space on West Leonard as providing a level of security and sustainability for his business in a walkable central business district with such close proximity to the surrounding residents.

“I really understand what it is to see those kinds of places benefit the neighborhood and then find a lasting place there,” he says. “I’m going to be 36, and I’ve been going to some of these businesses my whole life.”

Visit The Peoples Cider Co. online here or find them on Facebook. 

By Anya Zentmeyer, Development News Editor
Images courtesy of People’s Cider Co.