Loss of Farmer's Market is an Issue of Location, Location, Location

I met with the formidable president of the Redwood City Rotary, Lilia Ledezma, this morning and got the skinny on the closing of the popular Farmers Market on Tuesdays in downtown - and, it's not the fault of the Rotary Club or the City in finding a suitable location. The reason for the closing is that the vendors didn't want to go anywhere else.

While there are several people upset at the two-year hiatus, the reality is that the vendors were not seeing that much profit in the weekly event as it was going.  It grew enough in the first two weeks for them to see potential, but when the option of continuing the effort in another venue was presented, the vendors started dropping out almost en masse.

Why downtown and nowhere else? Because of the location of the County offices where the vendors saw to be the greatest source of customers.  Every vendor said they didn't believe any county employee would come if it were anyplace other than downtown.  

Suggested venues included the KMart lot, Kohl's plaza, The Bethlehem AD lot owned by Tapestry Church, and Main Street.  All ideas were rejected by the vendors.

Which answers the age old question of: If you put on a farmer's market and no farmers showed up...?