By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
Oliver’s Station Street Market has taken off with an unexpected level of success leaving organizers, vendors and customers a happy lot.
The market which is held on Sundays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. along Station St. between the Coast Hotel and the Visitor’s Centre started on June 2 and will run until Sept. 29.
Denise Blashko, Executive Director of the South Okanagan Chamber of Commerce and the driving force behind the market is thrilled with how well the market is doing in its first year, saying they have been adding a couple of new vendors each week and now total 20 vendors.
Each week there is a food truck on site and a musician plays each week as well.
“It’s pretty exciting!” she enthuses adding that even organizers of Osoyoos’ popular market have shared their surprise, noting it took them three years to build what they have today.
Blashko attributes a key part of the market’s success to the variety of vendors.
Fittingly, given Oliver’s agricultural preeminence in the South Okanagan, the Station Street Market has a total of three produce vendors – one hydroponic, one microgreen and one traditional ground crop farmer.
Handcrafted jewelry, pottery, Japanese sauces and sake from Penticton’s Kojo restaurant, freeze-dried sweets, Dubh Glas Distillery, fruit wine producer La Casa Bianca Winery and even gourmet marshmallows are among the unique collection of vendors.
At the moment that the Times Chronicle arrived, the crowd was pretty thin but Blasko noted that it was up and down and visitors had been coming in clusters, particularly from the local hotels and motels, many of whom come down after breakfast and before they head out to do other activities.
One problem is visibility for visitors driving through town as there is only a couple of small sandwich boards on Main Street. Bigger more vibrant signage will possibly come next year she says, noting the budget is stretched for this first year.
Most importantly she says, “We’ve got the core group of vendors and they say they’re pretty happy with it,” she adds.
“We see people from Oroville almost every week coming up for breakfast, stopping by the market and then they go to the District Wine Village,” she says. Last Sunday there were groups from Manitoba and Saskatchewan at the market, in the area visiting family.
So far the visitors outnumber the locals and Blashko is hopeful that as more Oliverians become aware of the market their numbers will grow.
She says it’s great people are sharing posts about the market and supporting it on social media, but she urges people to “support local by visiting and leaving money behind,” because that is true support, she notes.
