The owners say they wanted to build a business here to help the town recover from Almeda
The new Legend Cider bakery is under construction in Talent. [Jamie Lusch / Mail Tribune]
Adrianne Baumann and her husband, Tyler, will bring their Legend cider to the new building at 245 W. Valley View Road. [submitted photo]
A cider house coming to Talent is the vision of a former Ashland resident who wanted to help rebuild the area after the devastating Almeda fire of 2020.
Adrianne Baumann and her husband, Tyler, will bring their Legend Cider to a new building at 245 W. Valley View Road. The building that used to occupy the lot burned down during Almeda. The couple operates Legend Taproom in La Pine, where they also create their flagship product. The cider is available on tap at about 50 locations in Oregon, including some in the Rogue Valley.
Adrianne Baumann graduated from Ashland High School in 2002 and later moved to Deschutes County. She and Tyler started Legend in 2015. Her family owned the building that burned down on the property of their new facility, and she toured the area shortly after the fire.
“I think the obvious fact that we’re going into a building that’s burned down and bringing something that wasn’t there before is really appealing to me,” Baumann said. “It’s another option for Talent people to get together and be with family and friends.”
Snap Fitness, which occupied the old building along with offices, will return to the site.
The new building will be two stories high with eight apartments on the top floor. The tavern will occupy about 1,100 square feet on the ground floor, with Snap Fitness on the other side of the 7,000-square-foot structure. There will be an elevator to the second floor, where the two-bedroom apartments will be located.
The final inspection of the building, still under construction, is scheduled for September 19 and the tavern is expected to open shortly thereafter.
In addition to indoor bar seating and tables, there will be a 2,000-square-foot outdoor area with three fire pits, covered seating and misters for warmer days. There will be no kitchen inside, but there will be food trucks or carts. A food vendor is expected to be available at all times, with more on weekends.
Live music will probably be the highlight on Saturdays or Sundays. There will also be games, such as bingo and trivia, which have proven popular at the La Pine location, Baumann said. There will be televisions to show sporting events.
“For all of our events, we like to connect with fundraising for a local charity, which we plan to do when we do events at Talent. We will partner with local charities,” Baumann said.
The couple has lived in Central Oregon for 10 years. Tyler is from Gold Beach, attended Southern Oregon University and learned to ski at Mt. Ashland. They operated a food cart before entering the cider business in 2015.
“We decided we wanted a more stable, less seasonal lifestyle. We wanted to get something that was a little more year-round,” Baumann said.
Tyler couldn’t find a gluten-free beer he liked, so he started trying ciders. He found most of them to be too sweet or too dry and started making his own.
In 2015 the couple obtained their business license to start Legend Cider. They’ve been growing slowly, adding La Pine production operations in 2018 and opening the tavern there in 2019.
“Everything is gluten-free cider. What sets us apart is that we don’t use sugar, corn syrup or flavorings. It’s all natural,” Baumann said. “We actually created a product that we didn’t find on the market.”
Legend’s seasonal ciders include blueberry ginger in the winter and pineapple-coconut in the summer. All apples for the cider come from the Columbia Gorge region in Washington and Oregon. Some ciders contain other fruits, such as peaches, strawberries, limes, mangoes or blueberries.
All ciders have an alcoholic strength. But other products, some without alcohol, will be available from the 32 taps planned for the facility, including beer and kombucha.
The new store will have between four and five employees, both full-time and part-time. The couple is looking for a food truck manager and vendors. Nine workers are involved in the La Pine operation, including the owners and part-time sales staff.
The Talent City Council at its July 20 meeting recommended that the Oregon Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission issue a license for the tavern. An app showed scheduled operations seven days a week.
Just outside the new building, the city of Talent is completing a reworking of West Valley View Road that includes new lane configurations and dividers to separate vehicles from bicycles and pedestrians.
You can find more information at legendcider.com.
Contact Ashland freelance writer Tony Boom at tboomwriter@gmail.com.
