A Northeast Portland cidery known for its locally sourced ciders—and for taking local far-right protesters to court—is for sale.
A classified ad for Cider Riot, the NE Couch taproom and cider production facility, appeared on ProBrewer.com Wednesday afternoon. The posting, first reported by Portland beer blogger Warren Wills, lists the 9,800 square foot facility,its brewing equipment, and the rest of a 6-year lease for $700,000. For $175,000 extra, a buyer can also acquire the Cider Riot brand and intellectual property.
Cider Riot founder and owner Abram Goldman-Armstrong says the sale comes after a few years of quietly searching for investors to help keep the production and distribution side of his business profitable. Goldman-Armstrong says that when he signed the lease on the building in 2016, he built a facility that would produce up to 5,000 barrels of cider a year. But Cider Riot is only selling an annual average of 1,000 barrels. He blames low production on Cider Riot’s inability to invest in critical marketing and distribution costs.
“We’re not seeing the organic growth that we expected three years ago,” says Goldman-Armstrong. “I’ve run out of options.”
Goldman-Armstrong is hoping to sell his company to someone who’ll keep Cider Riot up and running.
“For me, the ideal scenario would be someone interested keeping it open, keeping me on as a cider maker, and passionate about growing the company,” he says. “But it’s too early to tell if that’s a realistic option.”
Cider Riot gained recent notoriety for being the backdrop of a violent May 1 confrontation between anti-fascist and members of Vancouver, WA’s alt-right group, Patriot Prayer. Patriot Prayer leaders appeared to instigate a fight with anti-fascist patrons sitting on Cider Riot’s patio, sending one woman to the hospital, and resulting in a criminal investigation by the Portland Police Bureau (PPB). Days after the clash, Goldman-Armstrong sued members of Patriot Prayer—including group founder Joey Gibson—for damages. In August, PPB arrested Gibson and five other men affiliated with Patriot Prayer for the May 1 attack.
Cider Riot’s social media pages have been plagued with hateful comments and scathing reviews from people affiliated with the far-right since Goldman-Armstrong sued.
Yet, according to Goldman-Armstrong, the public spotlight on his company has nothing to do with his decision to sell the cidery.
“That doesn’t have any impact on us in a real world way,” he says, adding that the pub has continued to be profitable since the May brawl. “The City of Portland’s permit office is more of a threat to business than a bunch of Nazi trolls.”
Goldman-Armstrong says the city took five months to approve his building permit to construct the cidery, meaning that, after construction, he had to pay the building’s $10,000 rent for six months without being able to make a profit. These kind of permit delays have become a scourge for many small business owners in Portland—and have led to the demise of other local breweries.
“It’s such a typical thing to say ‘Portland’s a tough city to do business in,’ but it really is true,” says Goldman-Armstrong. “If you want to build a condo [the city will] roll out the red carpet and put the red tape away. But if you’re a small business they don’t make it easy. ”
Goldman-Armstrong says he’s looking to sell Cider Riot before the end of October.
“If you want to build a condo [the city will] roll out the red carpet and put the red tape away. But if you’re a small business they don’t make it easy.”
Actually, it’s really difficult to permit and build housing in Portland too, hence why we have seen housing prices skyrocket over the past decade.
not 100% surprised, the one time I went into the pub – which is quite nice – I was completely alone with the bartender the whole time, at a normally peak hour. Personally I think it’s more a matter of location than anything else, as the product is good, too.
@ #1
There are number of reasons why Portland’s rent and housing costs have skyrocketed over the past decade (commodification and consequences from the failure to provide foreclosure relief in 09-11 being chief among them) but the permitting process is way down at the bottom of that list.
@ #3 Housing wasn’t “commodified” prior to the last crash? News to any housing market in the U.S. in the last 200 years…
Should have mentioned zoning, however, instead of just lumping it in under “permit and build,” since under the zoning you are limited to one or a handful of units on huge lots with huge setback requirements.
I am not far right, nor right of center and I still find Cider Riot to be complicit in hate mongering disguised as anti-fascism. One of the big problems facing leftist causes right now is labeling people who don’t happen to agree with everything going on on the left the far-right. There are plenty of moderate democrats who are going to be pushed in the republican party simply because they have been pushed out and made unwelcome in the democratic party. This is especially a dangerous game to play in Oregon which although has leaned blue for some time, it has only done so by a hair. The tendency to make generalizations like the author has in this article can easily tip the scales in favor of republicans.