Photo by Madoline Markham.
Farmers Market Urban Cookhouse SoHo
Area residents talk to local farmers about their produce at Urban Cookhouse’s farmers market in SoHo in Homewood. Restaurant owners plan to bring a similar market to Crestline Village on Wednesday evenings this summer.
In summers past, Crestline resident Sharon Graham has driven to Finley Avenue and Pepper Place downtown in search of locally grown vegetables. This year, however, she said she is looking forward to finding a similar selection of produce without leaving Crestline.
“I will love the convenience of having [a market] so close,” she said.
Urban Cookhouse will hold a farmers market on Wednesday evenings this summer on Vine Street. The market will run 10 weeks, June 4-Aug. 6, from 4-8 p.m.
“There is a growing need for fresh local produce [in Crestline], especially with the Pig closing,” Market Manager Laura Powell said. “We want to meet the needs of the community while supporting small family farmers in Alabama.”
The plan for the market features 23 vendor spaces and a kids’ area that will feature activities such as Wiffle Ball, inflatables, corn hole and face painting.
The restaurant’s idea to create local farmers markets was born out of a desire to both support the growers that supply their produce and to enhance the communities near their storefronts. Urban Cookhouse makes no profit off the market.
Since 2010, residents in Homewood have built relationships with a network of farmers from an 85-mile radius of SoHo through a Saturday morning market held by Urban Cookhouse. That market started with six vendors, who in turn introduced other local growers they knew to the market. Today 65 vendors are on Urban’s vendor list. Some will come for the full season and others just for a few events.
“I think they enjoy providing fresh produce for their customers and forming relationships with them just like we form relationships with growers,” Powell said.
Many of these vendors also now sell their wares at a market at The Summit on Thursday evenings, and Powell is recruiting some of them to come to Crestline on Wednesdays.
The Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce and Crestline merchants have been working to ensure the market will promote local businesses as well.
Lamb’s Ears co-owner Julie Howell heads a committee of merchants who will approve vendors to ensure that none are competing with Crestline merchants.
“I think the fact that [the market] will be during the summertime, which is a slow time for the village anyway, can be a plus as long as everyone is working together,” Howell said. “Hopefully this will bring not only our usual neighborhood customers but also some outside forces who will visit the merchants also and see what special things they have. We hope the market enhances the merchants and the merchants will enhance the market.”
Howell noted that most merchants are open until 5 p.m., and that the event will be a perfect time for people to buy vegetables and then eat at a Crestline restaurant.
In addition, Mountain Brook restaurants will hold cooking demonstrations, and the Chamber will host a booth that features a different Crestline merchant each week. Merchants will have the option to purchase tables from the farmers market as well.
Over the past several months, Powell has been working with not just Crestline merchants but also with City Manager Sam Gaston, the City Council, the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce, Police Department and Emmet O’Neal Library in honing the location and day for the market. She said everyone has been extremely helpful to find the best solution.
These parties and residents alike hope the market will continue to be rooted in the Crestline community. Powell said she recognizes that Crestline is already a strong community but that the market could make it even stronger. Graham agreed.
“I think [the market] will add to the wonderful community spirit we have here and would be just one more layer of what makes Crestline such a great place to live,” she said.
At the meeting, the Council also:
- Approved a three-way stop at the intersection of Dexter Avenue and West Montcrest Drive. A sidewalk along West Moncrest Drive from Euclid Ave. to Jackson Blvd. will be constructed and a crosswalk added at West Moncrest and Dexter, creating a need for the three-way stop to be added to slow traffic for pedestrian crossings.
- Discussed restricting the use of commercial landscaping blowers after 6 p.m. in the premeeting. Mayor Terry Oden proposed the idea, and Jesse Vogtle and Virginia Smith recommended they hold a public hearing for the proposal.
- Approved emergency storm drain repairs on a bridge on Bethune Drive near Mountain Brook High School.
