Unpopular opinion: Eastern Market's new weekend setup is worse than the old one

I've been going to Eastern Market for about 8 years now, both for personal shopping and for sourcing produce for my catering side gig. Last Saturday I walked through the new layout they rolled out this spring, and I honestly think they made it worse. The old setup had vendors packed tighter, sure, but you could actually walk down the aisles without getting stuck behind a group of 10 people taking photos of mushrooms. Now they spread everything out so thin that you're walking twice as far to see half as much stuff. And the parking situation is even more of a nightmare than before, they cut a whole lot on the north side for those stupid picnic tables nobody sits at. I get that the city wants it to feel more like a destination, but I'm there to buy bushels of basil not hang out. Has anyone else noticed their foot traffic dropped since the change?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_jake11d ago

Oh man, you nailed it with the parking complaint! They took out that north lot and now everyone's circling for twenty extra minutes just to find a spot. I heard from a stallholder that their Saturday morning sales are down like 15 percent since they made the switch.

the_harper11d ago

Did your friend actually time the extra circling? That's brutal for the vendors.

jennifer83311d ago

Honestly, it's like town planners forget people actually need to, you know, get places, @the_harper.