Sunday was opening day at the Mercer Island Farmers' Market, which just started up in August of last summer. The organizers had called me repeatedly about vending there last year, but I was skeptical about a market starting so late in the season and, besides, I had my hands full with Ballard on Sundays. But once the market did finally start, I heard from various vendors that it was one of the best markets around and I decided to figure out a way to do it this year, whatever it took. Fortunately, my business is able to produce and store a lot more product in our new kitchen than we could in our old space.
From the moment we pulled up this past Sunday folks kept telling us how happy they were to have us there. It made me realize that the independent markets have a very different feeling from the ones that are run by organizations running multiple events in various parts of town. People have more of a pride of ownership at these independent markets. I suspect we'll be seeing more of them over the next few years, especially now that the mayor has dramatically reduced the street use fees for farmers' markets. (Now we just have to get the health department to reduce their fees.)
The Mercer Island Market is on a street adjacent to a park, which gives folks a place to linger. And many did, in fact, stay for a while even though the day was punctuated with thunder and lightning.
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