Despite being called off for a few months at the start of this year, the quick revival of the Yarmouth Farmers Market at a fresh location led to a boost in visitors and sales this summer, according to organizers. Running 27 Thursday markets over six months, Yarmouth Farmers Market’s new organizer Miriam Marchesi brought 20 regular vendors and over 40 guest vendors to Memorial Green to the delight of between 600-700 customers each week. “It was so successful, I’m still getting emails from people in our community and neighboring towns who just appreciated how robust it became,” said Marchesi. “Physically, we were able to take the whole Memorial Green and just make it a community space every week.” While the market has run for over a decade, the weekly crowd in front of Town Hall is new. In February, Yarmouth residents and vendors were surprised and disappointed to hear that the Yarmouth Farmers Market would not return this year due to a development project at the market’s longtime location in Railroad Square. With no alternative location initially apparent, the former market organizer deemed the 2025 season untenable. Marchesi, a Yarmouth resident and regular farmers market attendee with her young family, took the organization’s helm. Working with the town, she was able to secure the location on Memorial Green, got vendors to sign back up for the once-canceled market, and quickly found sponsors all before having to run the outdoor event weekly for half a year. “I mean, you’re literally putting on a show, like you’re putting on a circus, every week. It takes a lot of work, but in the end it’s definitely worth it,” she said. The market continued the tradition of having local musicians play for the crowds, with the addition of a wellness practitioner area and weekly activities for children. Vendors were also able to accept SNAP for the first time this summer, which could be stretched twice as far with the Maine Harvest Bucks program. In addition to providing more space for community gathering and vendors, the market’s new location likely also gained vendors new customers. “The former location was great in a lot of ways for vendors, because it was covered and it was kind of this neat, self-contained space, but it didn’t have the same visibility from the street. And I think that really helped, as people could drive by and actually see what was happening,” said Reeve Wood, a vendor at the Yarmouth Farmers Market for five years. As owner and baker for Counterpoint Bread, Wood said that at the new location, his sales were generally up compared to other years. Marchesi estimated that $25,000-$30,000 in sales occurred at the market each week, and heard some vendors say they were making twice as many sales as previous years. “(The location) maybe piqued their curiosity and pulled more people in,” Wood said. While the earlier iteration of the Yarmouth Farmers Market hosted an indoor winter market for six weeks, Marchesi plans to host a one-day pop-up market inside the Yarmouth restaurant Gather on Dec. 6, in conjunction with many Yarmouth festivities on that Saturday. Marchesi is also already planning beyond the winter market. Having established a Steering Committee, she hopes to hire two people to help run the markets next season through Yarmouth Community Services, which the market operates under. While Memorial Green was initially a temporary location, the market is set to return there for its next season. With more help, the time to plan and a wave of enthusiasm for the market from the Yarmouth community and vendors, the seeds of next year’s market are already growing. “Every town should be able to have this have both a market with local accessible food for everyone and also a community aspect, where you see neighbors and friends and you know people flock together and celebrate joy,” Marchesi said. “Yarmouth is going to be able to maintain this. I’m confident on that,” she said.
https://www.pressherald.com/2025/11/18/yarmouth-farmers-market-closes-strong-season-in-new-spot/
Yarmouth Farmers Market closes strong season in new spot
