Marty and I are super excited that our farmers market, The Troy Farmers Market, will be moving back outside on May 7. The farmers’ market will be located back on “the street!” “The street” is located around Monument Square and down side streets around the square.
Before the pandemic, the farmers market had a festival-type atmosphere, with nearly 15,000 people visiting the market every Saturday. Can you imagine between 10,000 & 15,000 people visiting the market between the hours of 9-2?
It didn’t feel too crowded because the vendors are spaced perfectly. There are multiple musicians, many food vendors, areas to eat, and places to people watch. Customers also visit the shops on River and many adjacent streets.
In 2019, The Troy Farmers Market was ranked the number one farmers market in the state, region, and country. Ranked number one in the country!!! Wow!
The market did a great job making a massive pivot during the pandemic setting up the market in Riverfront Park, located right along the Hudson River. To follow protocol, vendors were spaced with vehicles in between the booths.
The market was set up with a one-direction-only traffic flow, and masks were mandatory. The market was carefully supervised. by market employees. Older customers could shop 30 minutes before the market was open to the public. The market did a fantastic making the best of a shitty situation for the last two summers.
Marty and I discussed the summer market and decided our five-year-old market setup needed an update. We needed a new tent after so much wind and weather damage. Standing under a tent that leaks is not fun…at all. Our sidewalk sign and table clothes are beat-up beyond repair.
Our setup did as many as 4 markets a week for the first two years and 3 markets for 3 years. We’ve decided we will be only doing one market from now on with a possible guest appearance at our local market if time and production allows.
Our wholesale business has grown during the pandemic, which is where we need to concentrate our attention. We love doing The Troy Market, making new customers by giving them the spätzle spiel, and connecting with our regular customers in person.
We are still as passionate as we were at our first farmers market in Arlington and still love spreading the spätzle love. ❤️
We’ve ordered a new tent and table clothes. We also purchased two new chalkboards. At Riverfront Park, each week, I made a saying of the day with chalk on the pavement of the sidewalk. People got a kick out of it, and we looked forward to it each week. Here are some of our favorites:
When the new chalkboards arrived today with regular chalk and chalk markers, I watched a few YouTube videos on chalkboard art. Did you know you have to season your chalkboard? Chalkboards are porous, so seasoning them makes the chalk easier to remove when you erase it. If you write on a chalkboard without seasoning it, it’s a son-of-a-bitch to clean. Who knew??
After I seasoned the chalkboard by lightly running the side of chalk on the whole chalkboard and then erasing it, I took the advice on the Youtube videos and practiced with my laptop. I realized quickly this it was not productive for me to do the board twice.
The advice I will be using is to use a measuring tape and trace lines as we had in elementary school when we were learning cursive writing. Do they even teach cursive writing anymore? I was told no but can’t believe it.
First, I used regular chalk and did a mock-up without measuring anything to get an idea of how to do it. On the other side of the chalkboard, I used a chalk marker, which came out better.
After you are done with your chalkboard art, you use wet and dry Q-tips to clean up the letters to make the whole thing look better, neater, and more professional. I was happy with my outcome for the first stab at it. The wording wasn’t correct, but I was only practicing.
I hated getting called on as a kid to go up to the board when I was in Catholic school. I also hated the kid in charge of writing down the names of bad kids if the nun or teacher had to step out of the room for a minute. I did love being able to go outside and bang the erasers together to clean them or wash the board with water. I do like these new chalkboards and look forward to using them.
We have four more indoor markets then it’s back out to “the street” with our new setup. Guess what? We can’t wait! ☺️