When I learned that the Burlington Winter Farmers Market would be moving from the condemned Memorial Auditorium in downtown Burlington to the University of Vermont’s Dudley H. Davis Center, I was skeptical that the new location would have the right vibe. My first visit to the market in its new location proved me wrong.
Memorial felt creaky and a bit cold, but the Davis Center — despite the sky-high ceiling in the atrium, manages to feel cozy. Vendors are arrayed around the center of the space and down the corridors. The one problem from a shopping perspective is that when people have bulky jackets and grocery bags, it can be a little tough to squeak past them in the hallways.
Otherwise, shopping there was a pleasure. In early December, it was a thrill to find many kinds of greens, cranberry juice, duck eggs, warming meat pies and, most surprisingly, local white and brown rice, grown at Boundbrook Farm in Vergennes.
Market manager Chris Wagner is pleased with the UVM facilities, including the free parking and a loading dock that makes entry and egress easier for the producers. His one qualm is that, currently, alcohol vendors are not able to sell their wares. The market board is in discussions with the university in hopes of finding a way to allow the booze makers back in. If they can’t reach an agreement, he says, the market will need to move again next year. He hopes it won’t come to that.
This weekend marks the last pre-holiday market, on Saturday, December 17, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. The market will resume on January 14 and occur every two weeks thereafter until April 8.
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Thank God. Same great vibe. I don’t know what I would have done if the vibe hadn’t been great or hadn’t been the same.
I’m not sure what “Same Great Vibe” means, but the new location is a huge fail in my book. We went to the first Winter Farmer’s Market a few weeks ago and doubt we will return. The ground floor of the Davis Center is not a big open space as needed for a market; instead, it’s an irregular-shaped area with just a lot of clutter — the normal stuff you’d expect to see in a student center that’s not set up to host a farmer’s market (duh!). And so the vendors have to squeeze themselves into whatever space they can, and on down a hallway that’s not nearly wide enough for vendors and patrons, and everyone has to push by eachother this way and that, with the traffic flow not working at all.
Add to that, the parking was a challenge when we went, being unfamiliar with UVM parking rules. The Jeffords lot that we were directed to by signs was full, with a lot of cars just circling around, but we finally did find plenty of open parking just further away.
The University Mall would be a perfect place for an indoor farmer’s market. Tons of parking, big wide open spaces for vendors to set up, and lots of stores that would love the extra foot traffic.
Just the name Farmers Market makes me cringe anymore. It’s a misnomer. What farmers ? Theses have become craft and specialty food fairs and over priced at that. Even in summer there are few farmers to be found. Give me a good farm stand any day in a country road. These things belong un a mall or school gym.