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Stroud Green Market Summer Term News
Hi everyone, I hope it really will be Summer soon and not just Summer term!
Here's an update about the market in case you haven't been recently. There were so many helpful comments before & after we opened it in September; I tried quite hard to put various things right & steadily make the market better & more interesting. We're now open 10-3 (in spite of what a few of the old signs might still think)
The listing for each weekend is at www.stroudgreenmarket.com/thisweek . In terms of traders, we've now got between 20-25 each time, with more joining every week at the moment. Here's what's either new or particularly exciting in my opinion:
1) fish stall EVERY WEEK
2) Really wonderful Italian cheeses & cured meats (there's also English cheese available from the toastie stall)
3) Organic Veg, Eggs & butter (as well as the "regular" fruit & veg farm)
4) For drinks: a new cider maker to go alongside the Italian wine & seven sisters brewery (all of these are now weekly)
5) every other week: free bike mechanic (best to get in early as he's got a queue!)
6) every single week live music starting about 11:30
7) starting this sunday (6th): to go with the much loved bread by bike there's sourdough bread from Hackney's E5 bakehouse (it's amazing!) sold alongside this last season's olive oil - 4 varieties from a single producer in Calabria.
8) crafts: we have taken on a few craft stalls which are related to food, produce & the natural world, including Alan Briggs & his bughouses, and hand-made lunch/sandwich bags, and (soon) local pottery.
9) there are at least 4 hot food options each week; and we're planning for more as the weather warms.
Please do come if you like - and all feedback is really welcome and helpful! You can always PM me or send a message through the website, or just comment below.
Thank you everyone!
Ed
Here's an update about the market in case you haven't been recently. There were so many helpful comments before & after we opened it in September; I tried quite hard to put various things right & steadily make the market better & more interesting. We're now open 10-3 (in spite of what a few of the old signs might still think)
The listing for each weekend is at www.stroudgreenmarket.com/thisweek . In terms of traders, we've now got between 20-25 each time, with more joining every week at the moment. Here's what's either new or particularly exciting in my opinion:
1) fish stall EVERY WEEK
2) Really wonderful Italian cheeses & cured meats (there's also English cheese available from the toastie stall)
3) Organic Veg, Eggs & butter (as well as the "regular" fruit & veg farm)
4) For drinks: a new cider maker to go alongside the Italian wine & seven sisters brewery (all of these are now weekly)
5) every other week: free bike mechanic (best to get in early as he's got a queue!)
6) every single week live music starting about 11:30
7) starting this sunday (6th): to go with the much loved bread by bike there's sourdough bread from Hackney's E5 bakehouse (it's amazing!) sold alongside this last season's olive oil - 4 varieties from a single producer in Calabria.
8) crafts: we have taken on a few craft stalls which are related to food, produce & the natural world, including Alan Briggs & his bughouses, and hand-made lunch/sandwich bags, and (soon) local pottery.
9) there are at least 4 hot food options each week; and we're planning for more as the weather warms.
Please do come if you like - and all feedback is really welcome and helpful! You can always PM me or send a message through the website, or just comment below.
Thank you everyone!
Ed
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Comments
Does anybody know of a good smoke-house in North London or at least someone who is v passionate about it? I haven't found one anywhere...
and lastly does anyone know of any good spots to look for kitchen/storage space around here? Something like a railway arch would be perfect. It's for a few traders to gang together & store, mature or make their goods, and maybe work together on projects like popups etc.
Meeting with a young pasta maestro on tomorrow who is hoping to take a stall soon. V exciting!
I know it's the current fashion but I can tell the difference. Only been once so far as it was a little out of my budget, I'll visit for really good cake though.
You might think about redesigning your posters and having someone handing out flyers on SGR. The poster outside Tesco (which I only just noticed after I've seemingly walked past it numerous times), doesn't really say much - you should have producers on it.
There's always a huge queue in the whole foods/fruit & veg shop opposite Nandos - excellent olive oil, raw chocolate etc., organic seasonal fruit & veg, proper free range eggs, cold pressed stuff and all the Whole Foods stuff goes down a bomb in there - there's definitely more custom in Stroud Green if you advertise properly.
Thanks that's really helpful all of that feedback!
I agree about the cakes; in fact we're lacking a good cake stall of any kind at the moment but I am hunting & I hope people will share their ideas & contacts.
The board outside tesco does list many of the things you can buy at the market some of which are quite particular & special...but maybe you're right that it's best to list the producers/stallholders rather than the products. I'll do that for my next board & see if it make a difference.
Thanks again!
I will be there to fill my bag. The Hop ones as well Scottish are my favourite. If you like a little heat go for. Welsh Dragon
Looking forward to it. I guess the nice weather is bringing more people out?
One of the most difficult things is getting stalls to be consistent (the giggly pig missed a week due to illness but were back last time. The "new" fish stall seemed to just turn up when they felt like it & not aren't coming back). Needless to say, the busier they are the less likely they are to cancel.
Going to get more tables & chairs for this summer weather.
Any other ideas, do say.
Cheers!
Have the school ever enquired about hosting their own stall for free? Would be a good place to have a second hand stall hosted by parents. Not quite a "hand stretched", "artisanal", "vegan" stall but a good way to give them more cash.
Out of interest, how much do the school get from hosting every week? I would like to see them getting as much as possible.
Of course we do prefer stalls to be selling things that have been hand made, but this is quite flexible, and in any case it gives a pretty broad scope to anyone interested in participating...
E
The best thing has been the interest in local people of getting involved taking a stall of their own (I reckon well over half the traders are v local and tiny businesses)...if this were matched by customer interest & "footfall" it'd be thriving! Obviously these things take quite a while & the fact that it's still going at all is heartening. Thank you all again for supporting & encouraging!
The signs that just say Stroud Green Market in big letters make people think it's a car boot (which is what my neighbours thought until I corrected them).
You need a much more active twitter account - with a profile description of what it's all about. You could have a better map there as your pinned tweet and then a photo of the market bustling with people as your banner photo. You need to keep posting photos of produce on the day especially - people mostly like tweets with images. The instagram is nice.
Using better hashtags would help more people to find you (maybe SGMarket), and tagging in the active local twitter accounts, like @stroudgreen for example, would help people to support you with retweets etc.
Anyway, I hope the market goes from strength to strength. I'll come along again one day.
Not everyone pays attention to what people are twittering, instagramming etc, so basics like decent signs (in the real world) are more important.
Trainspotter: sad about that cheese stall and the fish. It's not a matter of consistency with them: they just decided one day they couldn't come back and that was it. These days the stalls selling staples (bread, cheese etc) are 100% consistent...by the way, I know that Italian cheese isn't to everyone's taste and some day we hope to have greater variety - but if you haven't tried Marco's cheese you should, it's Amazing!! he's a maestro who's been doing it for years, his knowledge is extremely deep and his prices are reasonable.
Also, although it's unlikely we'll get that play area back we can try to make our own, probably in September, with big toys and games, maybe a few soft mats etc etc. I don't have children so if anyone has an idea how it could work best, or a toy to donate, please get in touch.
Soon: it's tricky not having natural footfall. I can't think of anywhere with high visibility that has enough space, and in any case we didn't really want to run a market like the one at archway just off a busy road. I reckon Chatsworth road is run by the council - would be a scary prospect and expensive to arrange for road closures etc every week. And in a way it's nice that it's tucked away, as long as (like Miss Annie says) we really work hard at the promo so that everybody knows about it. Then with greater footfall we can start attracting a few more stalls.
This is really helpful. Thank you all!!