PORTVILLE, N.Y. — For the second year in a row, doors of the popular Cummins Cider Mill in Portville will remain closed.
Last year, long-time owner Donald Leilous explained that staffing was the primary reason for no reopening. This year, it’s coronavirus.
The difficulties of opening are many — safety of staff and customers being the primary reason to stay shuttered this season. Kitchen staff would have to wear a mask continuously while making about 10,000 doughnuts daily in a hot kitchen. A relatively small store area would necessitate limiting the number of people inside while others wait in their cars. Given the location, even a drive-thru order and pickup line is not an option.
The uncertainty of the pandemic and the state’s requirements that change dependent on the rate of COVID-19 are also factors. Preparing for the opening of the cider mill is a costly endeavor, and should it be shut down in the middle of operation this fall, a useless one.
The cider mill has been a fixture since 1958, but the Cummins name in cider dates back to the Great Depression.
In 1932, Verne Cummins began selling his homemade cider door-to-door in Salamanca before opening his first cider mill in Allegany in 1936. After a 12-year hiatus, in 1958, he established Cummins Cider Mill at its current location, selling the site in the mid-1980s.
The shop celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2018, the last year that Cummins Cider Mill was open. Leilous, who also operates Southern Tier Polaris in Westons Mills, has headed the operation for 16 of those seasons.
Historically, the business has operated from the first week of September until Thanksgiving — when apples are coming off the trees on the fruit-bearing plains along Lake Ontario, where the cider mill has typically sourced its apples.
