Seattle’s farmers markets vying to survive
By Jordan Pickett The Daily

Faced with strict and seemingly arbitrary limitations to operations, some of the largest farmers markets in Seattle are having difficulties staying afloat.

Seattle’s farmers markets earned a spot on Gov. Jay Inslee’s essential business list, yet the beginning of the farmers market season in Seattle was marked with six weeks of closures. 

“Since we've been able to reopen, the city has exerted a pretty extreme amount of oversight on operations and what we’re able to do,” Corinne Monaco, content coordinator for The Neighborhood Farmers Markets, said. [CQ]

Due to a March 16 order by Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan farmers markets were lumped in with music festivals and art walks: they were considered nonessential public gatherings.

In late April, after six missed weekends for the markets, city leaders and farmers market organizers were able to come to a good faith agreement to allow partial reopening of markets. However, operations have not been easy for organizers or vendors since the reopening.

Founded in 1993, The Neighborhood Farmers Markets is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization originally created to support the U-District Farmers Market. The organization now runs seven of the largest farmers markets in Seattle. All of their markets operate year round.

As part of a deal with city leadership, The Neighborhood Farmers Markets was allowed to open just two of their markets, the U-District and West Seattle markets. Working with the city hasn’t been as smooth as the market organizers would’ve liked though, Monaco said.

“While our main concern is for the safety of our shoppers, there are certain restrictions in place that seemed to us to be a bit arbitrary,” Monaco said. The biggest frustration right now, she explained, is a vendor cap put in place by the city.

On an average day during the busy season — late spring into summer months — the U-District market can expect over 70 vendors. The City of Seattle, meanwhile, has capped both the U-District and West Seattle markets at 35 vendors for the time being.

“We're not even utilizing the full amount of space that we’re given which is frustrating when you have to have conversations with small business owners every week who are just trying to keep the lights on,” Monaco said. “Even factoring in the extra spacing between tents that we are required, we would still be able to have more.”

Social distancing of shoppers is also a part of the city’s strict rules for market reopening. Where the U-District market would regularly have three or four staffers on site, they now have at least 12 workers. The majority of these workers are there solely to walk the market and keep shoppers 6 feet apart.

“Those are people that we have to pay,” Monaco said. “We're a nonprofit so it's definitely a strain.”

Durkan’s office did not return calls for comment. 

The sentiment is shared by Kelly Kube, operations manager for Seattle Farmers Market Association, the organizer of the Ballard Farmers Market. [CQ]

“The major issue is the sustainability of this model,” Kube said. “King County Public Health and the City of Seattle have asked us to more than double our staff but we are operating at only 25 percent of our normal vendor capacity.”

“In turn, every market we operate, we are losing money on labor cost,” Kube added.

The vendor cap is the same for both markets despite the fact that the Ballard market occupies nearly three times the space of the U-District market. The vendor cap also comes with a new requirement from the city to space out vendor booths much further than usual.

It’s easy to see how market organizers are handling the extra spacing requirements at the U-District market. Chalk lines on the pavement are drawn to represent 6 feet from the front of vendor booths, each of which are spaced 6 to 10 feet from the next booth in the row. In an effort to reduce interpersonal contact between shoppers, the market flow is now orientated with one entrance to the north and one exit to the south.

In addition to a vendor cap, the city has put in place a cap of 60 shoppers in the market at any one time.

“During peak season figures for people inside the market at any one time would be upwards of 500 people,” Monaco said. “The most we have been able to get through the market during a day last month is a little over 1,000 people.”

While farmers markets in Seattle try to thrive with modified operations, the farmers themselves are facing their own unique predicament.

Seattle’s Small Business Stabilization Fund (SBSF) meant to “support small businesses financially impacted by COVID-19,” seemed like the perfect bandaid to help small farms navigate financial difficulties. But in order to apply to receive SBSF money, a business must be located in King County.

The majority of vendors at Seattle farmers markets are located throughout the rest of the state, outside of King County.

Many of the vendors' operations are housed in smaller cities in the central and eastern parts of the state, while the markets and the vast majority of their income come from larger cities like Seattle and Tacoma.

This means that those 35 vendor stalls per market could potentially represent a significant portion of a business’ revenue stream. For Monaco it’s a tough choice that has to be made each week; to determine who gets a seat at the table.

“We had to determine who is allowed to join us and who is not is based mostly on the state definition of essential businesses, but we’re also trying to consider whose livelihoods are most impacted by the loss of market sales,” Monaco said.

One such business that has been unable to sell at the market is King’s Mozzarella. Founded in 2017 by Costas Romero, King’s Mozzarella is the result of Romero’s decades of experience in an Italian family cheese shop.

He operates out of a facility in Kent where he handmakes several varieties of cheese, primarily mozzarella and oaxaca. Romero sells his products at six markets currently, with the Ballard market being his main money-maker.

“Ballard is a big market, it’s year round, and my main income,” Romero said. “I was forced to do home deliveries for weeks because they closed the Ballard Farmers Market.”

Romero posted his personal cellphone number on Facebook and urged patrons to phone-in orders which he would hand-deliver to their houses in the weeks that Seattle’s markets were shuttered. The effort was a relative success and Romero has actually turned down a couple market applications in order to spend more time focusing on deliveries.

But Romero is still unable to sell at the U-District Farmers Market due to the vendor cap, and his second best market, Capitol Hill, is still closed due to city restrictions. 

“A lot of people depend on the market to survive,” Romero said. “We have lost at least 50 percent of our sales.”

But Romero remains hopeful. 

“I still say that fortunately we are able to sell at some markets,” he said. “It doesn’t affect us that much, but I’m sure other vendors that don’t sell food are being affected big time.”

While Romero remains afloat for now, he realizes his relative success is an outlier amongst his peers in the market. 

“We are all in the same boat,” said Romero. “We were forced to do whatever we have to do to keep surviving and not give up.”

Reach reporter Jordan Pickett at news@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @JordanPickIt

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