Franklin Cider Mill Fall Season: A Bloomfield Hills Tradition
October 1, 2026
October 1, 2026
The Detroit News reported that owner Melanee Peltz Radner said of the families who show up at 7450 Franklin Road every September, "A visit to the Franklin Cider Mill has become part of their fall tradition." She wasn't describing an orchard walk. There isn't one. No rows of trees, no half-bushel bags, no ladder against a branch. The mill building dates to 1837, though it did not become a cider operation until decades later. The business describes itself on its own Yelp page in terms that most people driving past never stop to consider: "Franklin Cider Mill is not a farm cider mill. We are a national historic site."
That distinction changes what a fall weekend here actually is, compared with the pick-your-own orchards that get lumped into the same category across Oakland County.
The mill's 2026 season started Saturday, September 5, and runs daily through November 29, with hours of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, when it closes at noon. That's this year's 189th season of operation, a number that traces straight back to 1837, when the building was completed as a gristmill on the banks of the Franklin River after three years of construction. Opening weekend brought live jazz, face painting, roasted corn and grilled cider dogs, a lineup the mill repeats most weekends through the fall according to coverage from the Detroit News.
The press itself is the actual draw. Visitors watch from a viewing area as workers chop apples, layer them onto pressing cloths and run them through a 90-ton historic press that holds up to sixty bushels of apples per side. The cider that comes out is unfiltered, unpasteurized and free of preservatives, which is also why it has to stay refrigerated. The doughnuts are made fresh throughout the day from an old German family recipe, sold as singles, half dozens or by the dozen, alongside caramel apples, fresh bread, gluten-free doughnuts and vegan scones.
Most cider mill write-ups treat every mill in the region as some version of the same day: drive out, pick apples, buy cider, eat a doughnut, drive home. Franklin skips the first step entirely. The apples arrive already grown elsewhere, sorted and washed before they go into the grinder here. There's no acreage to walk, no picking bags to carry back to the car.
What that means in practice is a shorter, more concentrated visit built around watching a working press rather than spending an afternoon in a field. The riverside community area behind the mill, with picnic tables along the Franklin River, is where that visit tends to stretch out. Families grab a cider dog, sit by the water and feed the ducks before heading home, a routine specific enough to this location that it shows up unprompted in visitor reviews.
The mill has changed hands more than once since 1837. James T. Flynn installed the first water-powered apple press in 1914, converting what had been a gristmill into a cider operation. After a flood shut the property down, Robert McKee bought it in 1918 and set the original cider season to run from August 15 through January 1, a stretch of more than four months.
The mill sold again in the 1960s to Jacob Peltz, who ran it for almost 35 years until his death in 2004. His son Berry took over next, and today it's operated by Berry's daughter, Melanee Peltz Radner, the same owner quoted above about the mill becoming part of families' fall tradition. Three generations of one family have now run the press for decades.
For anyone mapping out a weekend rather than a quick stop, the pieces line up close together:
None of these stops require advance tickets or reservations. The mill's own draw is watching the process, not managing a schedule around it.
McKee's original stipulation in 1918 had the mill running nearly five months, from mid-August into the new year. The current season is closer to twelve weeks, opening Labor Day weekend and closing the Sunday after Thanksgiving. That's a shorter operating window than the mill kept a century ago, and it means the visit doesn't stretch into December the way some people assume a cider mill season does. Once the last weekend of November passes, the press stops for the year regardless of weather or apple supply.
For a neighborhood where the mill functions as a fixed point on the fall calendar, that compression is worth knowing before making plans. There isn't a slow tail end to the season here. There's a hard stop, four generations after the first family took over the press, on a piece of ground that has never grown a single one of the apples it turns into cider.
If you're weighing what an actual fall looks like in Bloomfield Hills, not just what a listing says about it, Erin Keating DeWald can walk you through it block by block. Let's Connect.
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