The Lockport Farmers Market will move indoors to the Dale Association at 33 Ontario St. starting Nov. 1. The market will run every first and third Saturday of the month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Patrons can use the parking lot on Lock Street or the Canal Street parking lot.
“I think our location is helpful to the consistency of the market,” said Gretchen Doty, the Dale’s senior center director. “We have a very large parking lot with a (handicapped accessible) entrance. The space seemed to work well.”
“We’ve had a really good outpour of vendor response,” Grace Platt of Lockport Main Street, which organizes the farmers market. “Now the issue is accommodating them in the new space. We’re not going to know how the layout works until we set it up. We believe we can fit 30 to 31 vendors. We would love to accommodate more, but I think for the first market we’re going to go with 25 to 27. I hope to have SNAP up and running for Nov. 1 so there are no interruptions.”
Platt said there would be a vendor tour of the space on Oct. 25.
“A lot of the food producers are very interested,” she said. “The farms go with the season. We’re anticipating seeing Heartland Organics, Local Roots, Human Farms, McB’s with lamb, Frost Farms, which does poultry, and Sunset Sky beef.
Platt said that those vendors are likely to be present from November to December. The market is closed in January.
“You’ll find some fresh produce, but it’ll be more food products,” she said. “We have a lot of bakeries that signed up. We definitely want to continue to offer a variety of products. We’re really thankful to our meat producers. Mamma’s Mission will be there, and they do dried dinner products, like chili mix.”
Crafters and artisans are a nice addition to the December market, Platt said, and are welcomed at Easter. “It’s a good way to shop for Easter baskets.”
Platt said moving the market was necessary because their former space at Harrison Place was undergoing changes.
“Unfortunately, building number 3 is still under construction,” she said. “They have run into a little storage issue. All the windows for the building are now stored in the space we used. They were hoping to get them installed. They are anticipating another shipment of windows. When I heard the news, I figured we should find a different space.”