VINTAGE COFFEEHOUSE & SAKE BAR IN TALENT

When you stand at the corner of Talent Avenue and Wagner Street in Talent, you look across the street at total devastation from the Almeda Fire in September 2020. Behind you are two restaurants that miraculously escaped the fire—Gather and the Vintage Coffeehouse & Sake Bar, which has been serving customers for the last 18 months. Gather, of course, is the site of the old Downtown Coffeehouse, a popular gathering place in Talent, before it succumbed to the Covid pandemic.

The owner of the building next door to Gather, which housed a stained glass shop, had been looking for someone to bring a coffeehouse back to Talent, and he was familiar with Phoenix Sigalove and his partner Lichen Richardson, who lost both their business, Daddy Ramen’s Food Truck, to the Almeda Fire and were closely involved with the Talent community. When he approached them about converting the spot into a coffeehouse, they jumped at the opportunity.

Coffee, however, was not their first love. Their food truck specialized in Asian-inspired cuisine, and that’s where they wanted to focus their attention. Phoenix is also a musician and wanted a venue where he could feature local talent. The owner of the building insisted that the site become a coffeehouse in the morning because Talent was sorely lacking in that department. Thinking outside the box, they decided to turn the building into a coffeehouse in the morning/early afternoon, and a sit-down restaurant at night with music. And thus the Vintage Coffeehouse & Sake Bar was born.

“The Vintage is home to Daddy Ramen’s Food Truck, and we’re currently serving dinner Thursday through Sunday from 5-8pm while hosting Daddy Ramen Supper Club Concerts,” Phoenix said. “We’ve established ourselves as one of Southern Oregon’s premier spots for live music. We offer music three nights a week as well as weekend morning from 10-noon.”

The supper club was their first love, and almost immediately they began looking for someone to take over the coffeehouse part of the bargain. And that’s where Soleil Heller comes in. Soleil had been working at Dutch Brothers in both Ashland and Eugene for over ten years, and she knew the business inside and out.

“My dad and I were having dinner at Gather one night when we ran into Sigalove, who was my tennis coach in high school,” Soleil said, while enjoying a mojito at Puerto Mazatlan. “He told us he was looking for someone to run the coffeehouse, and I told him I would be interested. The next day my dad went back and confirmed it, and all of a sudden I became the manager.”

Soleil is in charge of the Vintage Coffeehouse side of the operation, and as Talent’s only coffeehouse, it fills an important void in a town still reeling from the pandemic and the Almeda Fire. They’re open 8am to 2pm Tuesday through Saturday. Soleil and her crew serve up some great coffee and latte drinks, including a lavender mocha, spicy chai, and machas.

The breakfast menu incudes avocado toast on local bread, breakfast sandwiches, lox & bagels, muffins, scones and more. “We get all of our baked goods from Cassi at the Cake Bar in Medford,” Soleil said. “We also have music from 10am to noon on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Phoenix and Lichen hope to expand their menu and hours soon, and we’re working on a combined brunch menu on the weekends that will include champagne, mimosas, wine, cider and beer.”

For more information, you can check them out on Facebook.