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Market growing into a top banana

When the Saturday Morning Market adds 30 vendors to its 65 this month, expect a throng of up to 4,000.

By JON WILSON
Published November 9, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - Downtown's Saturday Morning Market, a weekly food, music and crafts festival, will add vendors and increase its space starting Nov. 19.

Thriving on a Central Avenue block between First and Second streets, the market will expand north into a parking lot bordering Central.

"I would say we're committed to making it happen," said Mark Johnson, one of the market's organizers.

Drawing 1,500 to 2,000 customers every Saturday from October until May, the market has proven popular enough that expansion has been discussed for months.

The added space means room to add 30 vendor spaces to the current 65, which will make the 4-year-old enterprise one of the nation's largest such markets. It already is Florida's biggest, and the vendor increase will put it among the largest 2 percent of the nation's 3,700 fresh markets, Johnson said.

The market opens from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., one hour later than in the past three years.

It is anticipated that the extra room will accommodate up to 4,000 customers, which would double the current weekly count.

Johnson and other members of the market committee recently returned from a trip to the International Market Conference in Washington, D.C., where they got a look at what other such ventures are doing.

"What we're up to is extraordinary. I don't know any market that has grown as fast as we have," Johnson said.

Familiar vendors will still be there, but maybe in a different location, Johnson said. He said organizers still encourage customers to park in the BayWalk garage, whose entrance is 11/2 blocks north on Second Street N.

The merchant mix will remain about the same, Johnson said.

"We are still actively looking for food vendors," he said, noting that the market likes to keep a pool of available vendors.

If vendors need it, the market has a health-certified kitchen where food can be prepared.

Flags around the expansion area, markers to show customers the pathways to it from Central, and some minor leveling of the parking lot's ground are among the elements of preparation.

Organizers are confident of the market's continued success because of customer feedback, Johnson said.

"In a typical business, if you get a 1-1 relationship in regard to positive-negative, you're doing very well. We have a 10-1 relationship. We know customers are just crazy about us," Johnson said.

He credited the city of St. Petersburg and lot owner Jimmy Aviram with helping expansion plans become reality.

People interested in becoming vendors can visit www.saturdaymorningmarket.com

[Last modified November 9, 2005, 00:39:17]