- Our Mission -The mission of the market is to be the ‘heart’ of St. Petersburg - the place, more than anywhere else, that people feel a strong sense of joyful connectedness and creative community.
- While great food, interesting crafts and lively music are all wonderful elements of the market, this spirit of community is what really defines the market experience.
- Many customers have shared that they think that the market is the most significant improvement to quality of life ever in St Petersburg.
- The Basics -
The market first opened in November 2002, and is now in its 8th season (2009 - 10).
- The market runs every Saturday from 9 – 2p.m. in downtown St Petersburg
- The market is located in the Al Lang Field parking lot (the corner of 1st St and 1st Ave S)
- We’re open from early October – late May each year.
- We recently opened a summer Market which takes place at the Mahaffey Theater parking garage.
- Attendance -
We’ve grown to become the largest one-day-a-week fresh market in the Southeast US, with about 6 - 10,000 customers each week.
- Live Music -
We offer live music every week that plays a key part of the upbeat market experience.
- Vendor Participation - - We currently have about 200 approved vendors filling about 120 spaces.
- We have a core group of regular food and plant vendors, and a rotating group of craft vendors.
- Our vendors represent a wide variety of ethnicities and nationalities, contributing to a rich multicultural experience of food, crafts and music.
- We receive a stream of vendor applications that are carefully screened to meet our criteria.
- Market Management - The market is a non-profit organization, actively managed by the Steering Committee (Mark Johnson, Gail Eggeman, & Carol Ringold).
- Gail Eggeman, is also the Market Manager, and handles the weekly operations. (727) 455-4921
- The market is not sponsored by an outside organization (e.g. city, merchants association, etc).
- We’ve bootstrapped our growth largely through volunteer efforts and creative marketing.
- Monthly newsletter -
We send a monthly email newsletter to about 3300 customers.
- Community Organizations - We want to become a key vehicle for building awareness and support for the wide variety of worthwhile programs available in the community.
- Non-profit community organizations are invited to participate (for free) at the market.
- Contact Gail Eggeman (Market Manager) for information about participating.
- Customer Satisfaction -
A customer survey indicated how delighted customers are with the market.
- On a 5 point rating scale, customers rated us a 4.8!
- Over 50% attend 2-4 times per month.
- Many say the market is the highlight of their week, and is the best thing about St. Petersburg.
- Extensive ‘word of mouth’ from our customers has been our strongest source of advertising.
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