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Turning Away From Starving Artists
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| The most successful Downtown farmers market takes place every Wednesday in front of the Central Library. Its success depends more on people looking for lunch than those seeking fruits and vegetables. Photo by Gary Leonard. |
Arts District/Little Tokyo Farmers Market to Hit Up the Weekday Crowd
by Andrew Moyle
Citing scarce patronage and a gradual exodus of staple vendors, the Arts District/Little Tokyo Farmers Market is giving up on Saturdays.
Instead, the market will adopt a strategy common to the three others held each week in Downtown Los Angeles: Try and make weekdays work. Starting Oct. 3, the market will assemble at Weller Court in Little Tokyo on Tuesdays instead of Saturdays.
"I really think that people will come to the market if the market has enough stuff in it," said Susan Hutchinson, the market's manager. "If we get back some of our farmers and we get back some good, prepared food, then when people discover us at lunchtime... we might attract some more Downtown people."
It's the latest growing pain for the market that started last summer on Traction Avenue in the Arts District. Just months into the experiment, the initial crowds of 500 had dwindled to fewer than 100 shoppers. In January, the market moved to Weller Court, at Second and San Pedro streets in Little Tokyo.
Flush with $15,000 in advertising funds raised by a consortium made up by the Los Angeles River Artists and Business Association, builder Howard Klein and developer the Kor Group (the latter two have housing projects in the area), and with the weekend population of Downtown briefly multiplied by immigration marches, the market had a bit of a resurgence in the spring.
"The location... made for a very interesting and diverse group of shoppers," Hutchinson said in an email. "Some days were a surreal mix of Buddhist nuns, women in kimonos, sleepy hipsters and artists, German and Japanese tourists and protesters waving flags. There was no better market for people-watching."
The market keeps 10% of the gross sales by prepared food vendors and 6% from the farmers. With roughly 20 vendors, receipts in the spring averaged about $4,000 and topped out at $6,500, with the market regularly keeping around $500 or $600, Hutchinson said.
But, as happened early on, crowds dwindled. The ongoing poor turnout has meant meager returns for the handful of remaining vendors, the most successful of which, the neophyte bakery Breadbar, recently decided to abandon its farmers market experiment entirely.
"It wasn't a positive one for us," said Rogelio Marhx, Breadbar's executive chef. "Sometimes, it wasn't [breaking] even. We had a lot of leftovers, even though we were the one that was successful."
Part of the problem, says Panagiotis Theodoropoulos, owner of Eliki Olive Oil, one of the vendors making the move to Tuesdays, is that Downtown, with its focus on serving the white-collar crowd, isn't yet suited to a farmers market in the purest sense of the term.
Eliki, one of the Arts District/Little Tokyo market's founding vendors, also sells its olives, oil and a selection of Greek appetizers at a handful of other markets. Among them is Downtown's most successful edition, the year-old Financial District market held Wednesdays on Fifth Street near the Central Library. That type of market - more temporary food court than what can be found on Thursdays at the 7+Fig or Chinatown markets - does well in Downtown, Theodoropolis said.
"People come down from their buildings to have lunch. They may buy one or two other things, but that's it," he said. "It's the same thing as the Century City farmers market."
It's possible the market arrived too early in a district undergoing change with each new residential development coming up in the area, Hutchinson said, although she had expected a bump in business when the Savoy condominium complex opened in February. So far, it hasn't materialized.
Despite the challenges, Hutchinson is hopeful that the move to Tuesdays will mean that a regular crowd will take advantage of the market's alternative choices for lunch.
Which isn't to say that it will necessarily work out. When the market originally started, Hutchinson had high hopes for her Arts District community, but the sentiment quickly went down the tubes.
"I thought for sure, that when we were over there, that it would really take off, that people would really get into it because of [having to drive] to Trader Joe's in Silver Lake," she said. "At first, it was, 'It's too early in the day. Artists don't get up in the morning.' Then it was, 'Artists don't eat vegetables,' That's bull, because I go to the Hollywood Farmers Market, and I see all my neighbors over there."
Arts District/Little Tokyo Farmers Market, Weller Court, 123 S. Onizuka St., ladad.com/farmersmarket.htm.
Contact Andrew Moyle at andrew@downtownnews.com.
page 1, 9/25/2006
© Los Angeles Downtown News. Reprinting items retrieved from the archives are for personal use only. They may not be reproduced or retransmitted without permission of the Los Angeles Downtown News. If you would like to redistribute anything from the Los Angeles Downtown News Archives, please call our permissions department at (213) 481-1448.
Instead, the market will adopt a strategy common to the three others held each week in Downtown Los Angeles: Try and make weekdays work. Starting Oct. 3, the market will assemble at Weller Court in Little Tokyo on Tuesdays instead of Saturdays.
"I really think that people will come to the market if the market has enough stuff in it," said Susan Hutchinson, the market's manager. "If we get back some of our farmers and we get back some good, prepared food, then when people discover us at lunchtime... we might attract some more Downtown people."
It's the latest growing pain for the market that started last summer on Traction Avenue in the Arts District. Just months into the experiment, the initial crowds of 500 had dwindled to fewer than 100 shoppers. In January, the market moved to Weller Court, at Second and San Pedro streets in Little Tokyo.
Flush with $15,000 in advertising funds raised by a consortium made up by the Los Angeles River Artists and Business Association, builder Howard Klein and developer the Kor Group (the latter two have housing projects in the area), and with the weekend population of Downtown briefly multiplied by immigration marches, the market had a bit of a resurgence in the spring.
"The location... made for a very interesting and diverse group of shoppers," Hutchinson said in an email. "Some days were a surreal mix of Buddhist nuns, women in kimonos, sleepy hipsters and artists, German and Japanese tourists and protesters waving flags. There was no better market for people-watching."
The market keeps 10% of the gross sales by prepared food vendors and 6% from the farmers. With roughly 20 vendors, receipts in the spring averaged about $4,000 and topped out at $6,500, with the market regularly keeping around $500 or $600, Hutchinson said.
But, as happened early on, crowds dwindled. The ongoing poor turnout has meant meager returns for the handful of remaining vendors, the most successful of which, the neophyte bakery Breadbar, recently decided to abandon its farmers market experiment entirely.
"It wasn't a positive one for us," said Rogelio Marhx, Breadbar's executive chef. "Sometimes, it wasn't [breaking] even. We had a lot of leftovers, even though we were the one that was successful."
Part of the problem, says Panagiotis Theodoropoulos, owner of Eliki Olive Oil, one of the vendors making the move to Tuesdays, is that Downtown, with its focus on serving the white-collar crowd, isn't yet suited to a farmers market in the purest sense of the term.
Eliki, one of the Arts District/Little Tokyo market's founding vendors, also sells its olives, oil and a selection of Greek appetizers at a handful of other markets. Among them is Downtown's most successful edition, the year-old Financial District market held Wednesdays on Fifth Street near the Central Library. That type of market - more temporary food court than what can be found on Thursdays at the 7+Fig or Chinatown markets - does well in Downtown, Theodoropolis said.
"People come down from their buildings to have lunch. They may buy one or two other things, but that's it," he said. "It's the same thing as the Century City farmers market."
It's possible the market arrived too early in a district undergoing change with each new residential development coming up in the area, Hutchinson said, although she had expected a bump in business when the Savoy condominium complex opened in February. So far, it hasn't materialized.
Despite the challenges, Hutchinson is hopeful that the move to Tuesdays will mean that a regular crowd will take advantage of the market's alternative choices for lunch.
Which isn't to say that it will necessarily work out. When the market originally started, Hutchinson had high hopes for her Arts District community, but the sentiment quickly went down the tubes.
"I thought for sure, that when we were over there, that it would really take off, that people would really get into it because of [having to drive] to Trader Joe's in Silver Lake," she said. "At first, it was, 'It's too early in the day. Artists don't get up in the morning.' Then it was, 'Artists don't eat vegetables,' That's bull, because I go to the Hollywood Farmers Market, and I see all my neighbors over there."
Arts District/Little Tokyo Farmers Market, Weller Court, 123 S. Onizuka St., ladad.com/farmersmarket.htm.
Contact Andrew Moyle at andrew@downtownnews.com.
page 1, 9/25/2006
© Los Angeles Downtown News. Reprinting items retrieved from the archives are for personal use only. They may not be reproduced or retransmitted without permission of the Los Angeles Downtown News. If you would like to redistribute anything from the Los Angeles Downtown News Archives, please call our permissions department at (213) 481-1448.
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