On any given day, in any given town, a green market is as good as it is because of its vendors. At the top-trending, top-ranking West Palm Beach GreenMarket, everyone is a star. And today, at the start of a new season, not even a few isolated showers, thunderous booms, and long rumbles could stop thousands of locals and their furry friends from coming out with their big umbrellas and colorful raincoats.
This new season features more than 100 vendors, including new additions like Ba Café, Arya Tea Bar, Macaroner, Sayblee Products, and Truffle Smiles, alongside long-standing fixtures like Leila Restaurant, Havana Cuban Restaurant, Cider Donuts, Mozzarita, Macy's Smoked Fish Dip, McKenna's Place, and La Gringuita Cookies (yum!) just to name a few faves.
“We've got a beautiful venue, but it's our vendors that make the market what it is,” says Angela Poco, City of West Palm Beach’s Marketing & Community Events Manager. Originally from Chicago, she’s always had a fascination for events and has turned that passion into a lasting, fulfilling purpose in a city she’s come to love.
“Our city’s energy is hard to beat! And here at the GreenMarket, we have such great vendors with an incredible array of products, and we try not to overlap them so that they're all successful.”
The interesting thing about WPB GreenMarket is that so many vendors start off as just that, a vendor. After a season or two, they build their customer base, and before you know it, they become brick-and-mortar. It's the tale of a true entrepreneur starting off as a small business. And the city loves the fact that it can help so many along the way. But the journey isn't for the faint of heart, Poco admits.
Vendors used to audition in a Shark Tank-style presentation—a short, high-stakes business pitch where an entrepreneur presents a product or idea to a panel of investors to secure funding, or, as in this case, a spot in the GreenMarket.
When Poco took office two years ago, she changed the process so selected vendors apply for a two-year run. “We had over 950 applicants, and so it became four days of judging. And it's not the city that judges the vendors; it's their peers, people who are experts in their industries. So we have chefs, marketing, and event professionals come in, because we want to make sure that we're asking the right questions and that they're (the vendors) the right fit for our market,” she said.
The difference between WPB GreenMarket and others around the country is not a secret. It doesn’t take whoever applies, which can lead to product oversaturation or missing the best of the best. And because our beloved city’s vision is to be the best of the best in everything it does, the process may be laborious for everyone involved, but it delivers amazing results.
Last year, on opening day, 20,000 people came out to the WPB GreenMarket. Clearly, our market is more than a place to buy food and home goods; it's the literal and cultural heartbeat of our community. It is the Saturday ritual where social life, architecture, picturesque waterfront views, and gastronomy seamlessly merge.
On any given Saturday, between 10,000 and 15,000 people come out. According to Poco, some vendors will have larger footprints this year, as per their request, allowing the crowd to move easily around them.
“We did some space maneuvering, rearranging a few vendors, and managing some line issues to make it a better overall experience for our patrons,” said Poco. “We are very fortunate that we allow dogs to come down, and we see a lot of families with strollers, too. So we want to be cognizant of the fact that they can walk through the market and not feel like, ‘oh my gosh, there's no space to move!’”
In a place as magical as Downtown West Palm Beach, a vibrant urban city around the water's edge, which represents the perfect harmony between natural beauty and dynamic metropolitan energy, it almost feels like you get a taste of the world right here.
Among the vendors, over 25 countries are represented at the market, and that says a lot. And for us locals, you find traditions we carried on from childhood in French or Cuban bread, a pastry, a spice, a pickle, a rustic olive oil bottle, or a clear mozzarella jar showing off its soft, springy, and silky goodness.
“It's kind of neat to see that reflected through the vendors, and through the customers that come. It's really kind of unique,” concluded Poco.
In this new weekly series, A Tale of the True Entrepreneur, get to know the faces behind the brands as we feature the best of the best—WPB GreenMarekt vendors—in a Q&A-style interview. Coming soon…
