It's a restaurant/bar, a hotel and a bike shop; Waitsfield business sets out on own trail.

WAITSFIELD ― It’s primarily a restaurant/bar. But a new place in the Mad River Valley that’s tapping into Vermont’s growing mountain-biking crowd with access to trails, a place to stay and an in-house bike shop is also striving to be much more than that.

What is the place?

The complex known as Madbush Falls is the brainchild of Jonny Adler, who’s done some brainchild-fathering before: He and a brother, Benjy Adler, created The Skinny Pancake regional chain of crepe eateries that began with a food cart followed by the flagship restaurant near the Burlington waterfront.

Madbush Falls (a portmanteau from the two surrounding ski areas, Mad River Glen and Sugarbush Resort) is just off Vermont 100 south of Waitsfield. The restaurant/bar, which seats 58 inside and 50 outside, and the attached shop, Riders Outpost, opened Aug. 2. A dozen of the hotel’s rooms, or about half, are open, with the full complement due to be ready Sept. 15. (Madbush Falls also provides 10 glamping-style tents.)

“You can have everything set up in one experience,” Adler said. “This is sort of normal in the ski world.”

The menu was created by executive chef Travis Daniell, who came to Madbush Falls from Juniper Bar & Restaurant at Hotel Vermont in Burlington. Jonny Adler said Daniell devised a menu that leans toward sharable plates friends can enjoy after a day on the trails. Those dishes, he said, are meant to be “a little more interesting than a bucket o' wings.”

The “apres-piste” (post-trail) menu includes a “sausage shredder” consisting of a bratwurst in a brown-sugar bourbon glaze on a rye blanket; a Mad River Melt with warmed artisanal cheeses accompanied by house pickles, chilled potatoes and apricot chutney; and sesame-seared tuna. The sandwich menu features a burger and a hot fried-chicken thigh on a brioche bunt. Main courses range from chicken breast with crispy potatoes and pan-roasted green beans to spiced lamb skewer. (The restaurant is open only for dinner to start but should add breakfast/brunch and maybe lunch soon, according to Adler.)

There’s a reason the sign out front lists Madbush Falls as a restaurant/bar/hotel. “This is more about the restaurant than the hotel,” according to Adler. He wants to emphasize a local crowd first, knowing that tourists generally want to do what the locals do, so they’ll follow the local lead.

“It’s not like we’re riding some tourist wave,” Adler said of the busy first few weeks of Madbush Falls.

What’s the story behind it?

Adler remains part-owner of The Skinny Pancake, though he has pulled away from day-to-day operations. He also helped another brother, Ted Adler, run the Union Street Media advertising agency in Burlington for 15 years, and more recently worked with Cash or Trade, the Burlington-based ticket-resale outlet.

Jonny Adler had been toying with the idea of a mountain-bike-centered hospitality business since 2014. He was further inspired when Ranch Camp opened in Stowe, where Adler lives. (Ranch Camp has a similar business model to that of Madbush Falls, minus lodging.)

The COVID-19 pandemic paused Cash or Trade, so Adler took the time to crunch numbers and seek guidance for his mountain-biking-restaurant/hotel idea. He asked a friend who owns the outdoors-themed Wrong Way River Lodge & Cabins in Asheville, North Carolina, if adding a bike shop to his business model would work. He approached longtime friend Marc Sherman, founder of Outdoor Gear Exchange (OGE) in Burlington, asking if a bike shop would make sense for a restaurant/bar/hotel located near a hub of mountain-biking trails; Sherman liked the idea so much he signed OGE up to run Riders Outpost.

The Vermont Economic Development Authority, two banks and 35 mostly-local investors pitched in as well. In August of 2021, Adler made the first payment toward the property to house his new business. The site was once occupied by John Egan’s Big World Pub & Grill, named for the renowned extreme skier, but sat dormant for many years.

Adler intended to name the entire business Riders Outpost, but after receiving invoices addressed to the “Madbush Motel” he had a change of heart. Madbush Falls is the name given to a plummeting body of water that pours out of the adjacent Folsom Brook.

“This place has a lot of soul,” according to Adler, “and it was telling me what its name was.”

Vermont is known as a ski destination, but Adler is calling attention to what he considers the state’s outdoorsy strong suit.

“Mountain biking is our best sport,” he said, as the skiing is better in the western U.S. and Vermont’s soil and close-knit communities make it a natural for biking. Skiing creates mountain communities that are separate from the ones they grow out from, Adler said, whereas mountain-biking trails link communities.

Madbush Falls sits across Vermont 100 from what Adler said is eight hours’ worth of mountain-biking trails, including the just-opened Goodnight Irene trail. When he moved to Vermont 20 years ago, Adler said, the state had a couple of difficult-to-access mountain-bike trails. Now the state has more than 1,000 miles of trails, and Adler said the ones near Madbush Falls draw tens of thousands of riders a year.

He scoured locations in Waitsfield and Stowe before choosing the former John Egan’s site. Because it had been abandoned for so long, Adler had to install a sprinkler system, septic system, underground beer cooler and other amenities, comparing it to building a city.

“It’s been a scary run for me,” Adler said of Madbush Falls. “It has overwhelmed the crap out of me. I would never had done it had I known. So I’m glad I didn’t.”

Hours and location

Madbush Falls/Riders Outpost, 7575 Main St./Vermont 100, Waitsfield. 5-9 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 5-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday (restaurant), noon-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday (bar/snacks); 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday and Sunday, noon-8 p.m. Friday-Saturday (bike shop). (802) 496-7575, www.madbushfalls.com

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Madbush Falls opens restaurant, hotel, bike shop in Mad River Valley