The opening of Two Broads Ciderworks
Sometimes I tease Morgan about my early naivety. “‘Let’s start a cidery,’ she said. ‘It’ll be fun,’ she said.” She rolls her eyes. This is usually after squashing one of the innumerable annoyances to getting our business going.
Morgan and I always wanted to work for ourselves, a romantic notion of independence (which is disabused by the seven types of taxes we pay to five different government entities; c’est la vie). In our first 10 years together, we researched ideas. Do you remember Palindromes? They made deep-dish Chicago-style pizza, that dish New Yorkers call a casserole. It was where the Ox + Anchor is now on Palm Street. When Palindromes closed, we resorted to visiting my family in Oakland to get the famous Zachary’s pizza on College Ave., but that was a long drive just to get our pizza/casserole fix. So we had to figure out how to make it ourselves. Our research involved The Great Chicago-Style Pizza Cookbook, dumpster diving at Zachary’s in the dark of night (in case you were wondering, the secret is still in the sauce; they get a proprietary blend of tomatoes) and numerous trials with friends and family to share the calories of our failures and our successes.
Our process seems to be as follows. Step one, meet a delicious thing that inspires us to make that delicious thing. Step two, do all the research. Step three, practice. Repeat step two and three as needed until our standards are met. Step four, test the viability with more research into permitting, cost, statistics. Going back to the pizza/casserole example, a restaurant was beyond our means and, with our only food service experience being a kiosk at Irvine Park and an ice cream stand at the NorCal Renaissance Faire, we weren’t confident we had the stuff to make it a success.
As a biologist and a software engineer, we fell in love with the process of fermentation through home brewing beer, wine and cider, and making pickles and bread. In the late aughts, we were elated by our handful of home brewing awards, the quality of product we shared with friends and family, and were encouraged by those friends and family to follow that passion.
The cider industry was new to us when we incorporated in 2015, our LLC of two, and we knew little about running a tasting room. Bootstrapping upstarts that we are and lessons learned from
my new job at a restaurant, we felt ready to tackle it. We knew just enough to want it and our enthusiasm carried us through a maze to the point where we told ourselves we had come too far to give up.
Can you believe it took two years to find the right sized space for the right price with a landlord that wanted us? We found our dream landlord and warehouse in late 2016, and that’s when delays started to cost money. We had to pay rent while we waited for architectural plans, alcohol permissions from state and federal entities and approval from city planning and building departments. By the time our building permits were approved, the fees were 30 percent of our project budget; we could build half of it, but we wouldn’t have money to buy apples. By mid-2017 we adapted our business model without a tasting room. We prepared for harvest season and a pivot to self-distribution to bring in those wholesale dollars. I added head of sales to my list of titles, which already included compliance officer, operations manager, marketing intern and cellar monkey.
That first year, we answered many questions. Will there be enough apples for us with all the cider makers in the area? How do we get them here? How do we not kill ourselves every press day? And not to forget all of the taxes, and that onerous, infamous TTB winery operations report. Morgan concluded that we were in the paperwork and logistics business that has the side effect of producing cider.
We streamlined our press day in 2018. We acquired the warehouse bay next door, found a deal on a bin dumper, a 1,000 pound hydraulic lift with a frame to hold an apple bin and a chute attached to guide the apples to their bath. We towed it nearly 1,000 miles from Oregon with our 2004 Mini Cooper (yes, it can tow and, no, we did not exceed our GVWR). Now sometimes, we actually go to bed at a reasonable hour after a press day.
Perhaps I should point out — we are women. We sit under the queer rainbow umbrella. Who we are is inseparable from our brand, our story, our authentic selves. We are aware that some people find our existence offensive, and wearing those labels is a risk, even in this community. Yes, there are the difficulties of being entrepreneurs, but it hasn’t been so bad. While our car did break down while collecting that bin dumper, the trip was full of scenic vistas and campgrounds. I love the gorgeous smell of ripe apples wafting throughout the warehouse and fun times with friends sorting apples and joking around on a press day. How rewarded we were when our first tiny commercial batch of cider from crab apples turned out so fun and funky (Crabby McCrabface), and the second batch (Gala Agenda) made with what we thought were boring, culinary apples turned out incredibly delicious.
This year, just as we pulled our building permits and plunked down a crap-ton of cash to finally build our tasting room, COVID-19 was beginning to spread. At the time I write this, there is a surge in cases and indoor activities are ordered to close again. This virus isn’t finished changing the landscape of the hospitality business or our lives. It’s hard to imagine where, when and how we will come out on the other side of this, but I never imagined we would be the proud owners of a forklift, and a moderately successful cider business. I have to believe and be ready to make it work, because we’ve come too far not to keep reaching for that romantic goal.
When I told Morgan I was going to write this piece about our journey into the cider business, she said, “We have to tell the story of sacrificing our firstborn to the apple god.”
“The apple god, Manzanaman,” I chortled. We take ourselves seriously, but not too seriously. I mean, this is supposed to be fun, right?
Two Broads Ciderworks cider can be found at 927 Beer Company, Big Sky Café, Central Coast Brewing, Ember, Fossil Wine Bar, Koberl at Blue, Lincoln Market & Deli, Luis Wine Bar, Luna Red, Mint + Craft, Oak and Otter Brewing Co. and Old San Luis BBQ.
