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Downtown Farmers Market

Anyone know how things are going over there? I keep wondering if progress is being made.
 
First floor is fairly busy. 2nd floor is sparsely populated except for the food court area, although the food court expansion hasn't started yet.
Looking forward to the market moving outdoors - when does that start?
 
My younger son and I were there on Saturday about 2:00. I hadn’t been there since before Covid. The main floor had as many vendors (30-40???) as I remember pre-Covid but the second floor is now open. There were 15 or so vendors upstairs with tables and chairs set up along the east wall. A guy was just packing his guitar up when we were there. It certainly wasn’t busy (like the Strathcona market) but there were definitely a reasonable amount of people milling about and buying stuff. I will definitely go back. Here is a shot from the east side of the second floor.
6314C3FB-0FF9-4059-8100-D79B69CCA1BC.jpeg
 
This is a good start. If we could only get an entire row of food trucks set up there every weekend on a regular basis you might get enough of a critical mass going for this to seem less like ad hoc planning and more of a concerted effort to get things scaled up and successful on a region-wide scale... It still blows my mind in a city this urbane/progressive and liberal that it can't support two viable ongoing farmer's markets... Really? That's like saying we can't grow/sell/smoke dope when CLEARLY Edmonton is the undisputed grand master of the game... Be it agri-tourism of the market or cannabis market variety...
 
VALHALLA FOR FATTIES LIKE ME! The Washington Street food truck market in Portland. 40 food vendors who open daily in an active parking lot with VALET parking. It cost $10USD for two hours and they pick up and drop off the car for ya! You can't tell me the weirdo's in Oregon who run it don't know a good thing when they have it. If you make any weird road trip plans this summer, make it Vancouver-Seattle-Portland to see cities with similar issues and how they solve them.. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...:Food_carts_-_Portland,_Oregon_-_DSC01696.jpg
Food_carts_-_Portland%2C_Oregon_-_DSC01696.jpg
 
Personally I'd this to open on the Tegler Building site along with a couple hundred picnic benches. This outdoor food hall for mom and pop restauranteurs priced out of ACTUAL real estate in the city is a small business success story I thought this board's neo-con champions would be ALL OVER! No? Just this NDP'er! OK... For the cost of a crappy converted Taco Truck and some elbow grease you can really make a great living at a food truck especially if you're a writer/artist looking to do part time day jobs while making creative projects at night... If I had something more than a fleeting ambition to cook I'd have opened a dozen of these with different food options because I have lots of ideas for those willing to listen! ;-)
 
ION said:
This is a good start. If we could only get an entire row of food trucks set up there every weekend on a regular basis you might get enough of a critical mass going for this to seem less like ad hoc planning and more of a concerted effort to get things scaled up and successful on a region-wide scale... It still blows my mind in a city this urbane/progressive and liberal that it can't support two viable ongoing farmer's markets... Really? That's like saying we can't grow/sell/smoke dope when CLEARLY Edmonton is the undisputed grand master of the game... Be it agri-tourism of the market or cannabis market variety...
Click to expand...
Well on Saturday's there are more than just 2. 2 downtown, Bountiful, south common, Strathcona, St. Albert. Unfortunately with that many markets on one day, there are only so many vendors to populate the markets.
More food trucks would be great.
Hopefully too, when the Valley line opens we could see more people taking the train to come to the downtown market.
 
How is this doing these days? It seem rather under the radar and I don't know that many who go anymore, but I am also not close to it these days.

-Many new vendors?
-How is retention?
-What is traffic like?
 
IanO said:
How is this doing these days? It seem rather under the radar and I don't know that many who go anymore, but I am also not close to it these days.

-Many new vendors?
-How is retention?
-What is traffic like?
Click to expand...
Been there a few times on Sundays over the past few weeks. Fairly busy in the morning, a few new-ish vendors.

The last two weekends were quite busy I'm the food court. Still a lot of free booths in the second floor, though.
 
I know that they removed Friday from the schedule in later part of 2022.
 
This is really so sad, but hopefully a better/feasible alternative space for the market transpires and they can continue on in the hood.
Or better yet, a new amicable lease can be arranged and they can continue on and stay put.
I would have loved to have seen the market recover and grow into their original concept with the shipping container set-up and expanded offerings and open daily. ) :
 
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