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 10th season (20011 - 12).

• 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 8 - 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 130 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.

Website - We have an unusually rich website (www.SaturdayMorningMarket.com).

Monthly newsletter - We send a monthly email newsletter to about 4000 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.