it's cold outside, but eventually it is going to get warmer and believe it or not. And
then the markets are going to open up the outdoor markets and it's going to feel like
springtime again in summer. I know what doesn't feel like it now. With me is Andrea
for Gianni, the executive director of the Kenosha Common Markets and John Collins board
president of the Kenosha Common Markets. Thank you guys for coming in. Not a problem
right through the freezing cold and everything. It's sunny in Kenosha today. Yeah. Well,
not now. It's still dark when the sun comes up. It's going to be. And I'm pronouncing
your name right, Andrea, right? Right. For Gianni. For Gianni. All right. Well, good. So we
have the first before we begin, what is Kenosha Common Markets? Go ahead. Kenosha Common
Markets is our corporate name. It is the umbrella name for organization that operates both
Kenosha Harbor Market down on 2nd Avenue in downtown Kenosha and Pleasant Prairie Harbor
Market on Lake Andrea in Pleasant Prairie. And the winter market in Kenosha, which we're
currently operating and we ran the market last Saturday and we'll be running them this Saturday
inside. That's not to say we're worse than winter market. All right. Well, that's not bad. So where's
the winter market located? That's at the women's club of Kenosha, which is on library skate
square again in downtown Kenosha. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've been there many times.
Okay. So what's on the inside can't be fresh vegetables and fruits because where were they
come from? We actually have some vendors who have the fall storage produce such as apples,
people who are growing things in greenhouses as we get closer to spring. They'll be bringing those
things in seedlings to get your garden started. We do have microgreens on a weekly basis. So
there's a limited amount of produce, but nothing near what we have during the outdoor season.
So what else is there? Eggs. Eggs. We have we have a we have a farmer who brings in eggs every
week. They're fresh and she I think she has a name for her hands. Okay. Okay. So is there
things other than food at the winter market? What's there? There are also artists and products.
There's prepared foods and beverages that you can enjoy while you're shopping or just enjoy
the live music that that's in the venue. Baked goods are always a popular one. Some comfort foods
during the winter. Nice to bring home or enjoy on site. I never heard of a winter market before.
It's pretty common. They have one in Madison. We've had we've had one in Kenosha through Kenosha
Herber market for guide for a couple of decades at least. Really? It used to be down in the
Rodi Opera House. We had it there. We had it in a Masonic lodge and we had it at the Kenosha
Union Club for several years. And currently we're at the Kenosha Women's Club on Library Square.
What was I in a coma? I didn't know about this. I just wanted to do something after decades.
I never knew. It was a winter market. All right. Okay. So the winter market lasts until
the end of April. The last Saturday of April is our last Saturday. You're really going
to spring with that winter market, don't you? Yeah. Okay. So when does the summer market begin?
The outdoor season. We're not going to call it summer on May 2nd, but May 2nd is our first
Saturday outside. So it'll be well into spring. That's when we return to second avenue.
So what's all there? Because in May, I don't think we have, do we have fresh fruits and vegetables?
I mean, we've got, it's all seasonal. Yeah. The high point of the season would be in the late
summer. But we have farmers who are producing other things, flowers, seasonal vegetables that
will come in early to get all sorts of vegetables, but not the quantity in the variety that you're
going to have in August and September, obviously, because our rule is these products need to come
from one of the adjoining states. So we're not getting stuff from California. You know,
this is all local stuff. Oh, really? So you're joining state. So you're not going to get stuff
like corn isn't going to be at the market until late July. And then we've got, then we get
corn the rest of the year. So can only be products from Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois,
Illinois, and that's it, huh? And Wisconsin, of course. That's the rule. Wow. I didn't know that
either. And an important note there is the vast majority of the farm producers who show up at
the market are actually the growers. So people who do go shop are working directly with and
buying directly from the people who have grown their food. So it's a direct to consumer market.
And you also have one now. This is Ken O'sha, but there's one in Pleasant Prairie as well.
There is. Where's that? That is over on Lake Andrea, which is just off of 165. It's on the western
shore of Lake Andrea. We have four dates this upcoming outdoor season starting on June 7th.
And those are select Sundays during the summer. You know, I never knew. Well, I know go to
Mount Pleasant that often, not Mount Pleasant, Pleasant Prairie that often. But wow, now we know.
And now you know, take a nice trip down there for the day. I was looking to get out of the house
every once in a while. And that's nice. And it adjoins the beer garden. So if you want to come
and spend the day, you could go and get your vegetables. You can go over and have a
brought her a beer at the adjoining property. And right next to the famous Rexplex
the village of Pleasant Prairie operates. So it's a whole community of activities that are
available in that area. I'm going to tell you a secret. A lot of people don't know. I never had a
beer in my entire life. Taste it at once, years and years and years ago. I didn't like it.
Never had another one. Here's another secret. I never had an apple, an orange, a pair.
Never had any of those. I as a million vegetables. I never had either.
And my parents forced me and I stood firm. And I said, no. And I had to sit at that table for
hours till I ate. And I didn't eat it. Finally, they said, his will is too big for us to break.
And I never had a good nose is in the summertime. We've got a wide variety.
A vegetable. And you can take your pick and not choose those if you don't.
Well, I love salads. I eat salads every day. So I do like some vegetables,
but fruits and stuff. I don't know why. I can't put my finger in my mother's head.
How could you not like an orange or an apple? I don't know. I just don't. I like orange juice.
I just don't like apples and oranges and pears and all the other fruits that come with it.
I don't know why. I love bananas. That's a fruit. We have no bananas.
There's a song like that. We have no bananas. We have no bananas at the Kenosha harbor market.
Okay. So what do you have? And this is the, I'm talking about the summer one.
The summer market. It actually involves over 200 vendors consistently for the past couple
of years. And we expect to exceed that this coming, upcoming outdoor season. It's a wonderful mix
of the produce vendors as we talked about. So those fruit and vegetable vendors, including the
the favorite sweet corn that comes during the mid to late summer. We also have a lot of prepared
food vendors for the past couple of seasons. And again, we expect this this upcoming outdoor season.
One can eat at a different prepared food vendor every Saturday. That was prepared food.
That's like a food truck or people who are making food on site. So we've got all sorts of
cuisines. You can literally have a different food every Saturday and still not hit all the
prepared food vendors. Wow. A lot of ethnic foods. Our weren't served to me growing up in our
house. You know, you've, you've, you've got to give us an example. One of our longtime vendors is
Pedro. So we have Mexican food. We have Lumpia lady who has Filipino food. We welcomed cut stone
last year with their pizza out of a fire truck. I'm just hitting on some major ones here. We have
so many. And I know I'm I'm missing many of them. We always have barbecue.
When did food trucks become so popular everywhere now? I see them in parking lots. I see them on
the street. It's just in the last few years. A lot of small time operators. If you decided that
you wanted to get in the food business, you know, the logical place to start is something that's
not going to cost a lot of money and big brick and mortar store about different employees. So you
might want to start with a food truck where you're making some old family recipe or you're selling
oranges and apples and those other things that you like so much, whatever, whatever. You can
sell them out of a food truck with appropriate licensing. And many people will start there and they
will grow and they will then end up in a brick and mortar store. But some of them would just run
that food truck all summer every year. And they do that for decades or family does it? I don't
know how I've never been in one inside one. But it must be crowded in there with all the
stoves and people running around and the orders and people lined up and you got to get their food to
them. Oh, they do that. They have a very organized process. We were at a friend of ours was
worked for Bombardier. I figure what they called now. But and they had like an employee day.
And they must have had seven or eight food trucks lined up. It's all free. You know, you can just,
you know, they company paid for it because I company picnic and I kind of moved on to it.
Anyway, so they had a seven or eight of them lined up there. Our list of vegetable vendors varies
from one year to the next because one year you might have ABC, those three vendors and one of them
may decide not to go into business that year or go some other place. So we'll find a new one.
It changes. You can't predict a couple of years in advance. What kind of fruits or vegetables
are going to be there because the vendors change right now. We're in the process and Andrea can
explain this a little bit closer. But we're in the process of signing up the vendors for this year.
With me is Andrea Fujiani. She is for Gianni, the executive director of the Kenosha Common
Markets John Collins board president of Kenosha Common Markets here. We're talking about all the
vendors that show up for the either the winter markets or when it comes toward the warmer weather
starting in the spring. So how do you, how do you, well, some of this is a farmer listing right
now. It says, well, I got stuff I want to sell. How do they do it? Well, then we want to hear from
you. Those interested potential vendors can visit our website at Kenosha Harbor Market dot com.
Our vendor application is completely online. We need to see some photos. We need to know a little
bit about your business. And then we'll review that and let you know if it's a good fit.
Okay. So they have to pass like a little test first. It's not really a test. It's to make sure
it's a good fit. We can't have 20 lemonade vendors. So it needs to be a nice balance of different
types of vendors. Okay. And these are a deadline for that or just whenever they need to do it.
It's a rolling application deadline. We review applications once or twice a week. And we get
back to people who have applied as soon as possible. Now, how do they do it? How do they, how do they
apply? They just go to our website. There's a link on our website where it's completely
electronic application. You just type in your information, upload some photos. Let us know a little
bit about your business. And we'll take a look at what's the website. Kenosha Harbor Market dot com.
It's simple enough to remember Kenosha Harbor Market dot com. Now also you would tell me you
have cooperation with Kenosha, Pleasant Prairie, but the local government. I would view it more
as a partnership. We couldn't do what we do without having a strong, healthy relationship with
municipalities, including the city of Kenosha and the village of Pleasant Prairie. We work
closely with Mayor's office, with the Kenosha Public Museum, the parks department in the city,
and we so appreciate having that kind of ability to work together so well. Also with the
village of Pleasant Prairie and their parks department, it makes our job a whole lot easier
to have people on the same page in that we just want to produce successful events for the community.
Our Harbor Market in the summer is on a city street. So that necessitates an agreement with us.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's adjacent to Parkland, which which necessitates us having a good relations
with the city parks department. So we work together very well. Look at my big numbers here.
200,000 people. Not at one time. I know. I know. Not at one time, but over the course of the whole
year. Over the course of the outdoor season, which depending on the calendar is between 24 and 26
Saturdays. A lot of vendors there too. 220 small businesses and nonprofits involved. That is
correct. And not all of them. Again, the same day. We we'll run on a high point in the summer
how many? Oh, we'll hit about 175 vendor booths, which is about 125 vendors.
Let's talk about those dates again for people just tuning us in the morning. People tune in
out real quickly. So the the winter market is going on right now. You don't call it that. What do
you call it? We call it the winter market. Winter market. See? I'm an interesting name. I can't
do a lot of research to come up with that name. But we finally found one that I know you went
out to the Delts. You had a weekend to come up with this. You went to Tula Vista. We said,
we've got to come up with a name. We'll spend all weekend doing it. Okay. The winter market runs
from now until the end of April, every Saturday through the end of April. And then right after
that, we don't miss a Saturday. We start outside on May 2nd. So that's indoors. And where is it again?
The women's club of Kenosha, which is on library square in downtown Kenosha. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
We did a lot of broadcast from there. And live at the big square in Kenosha. And when it's
outdoors, the Kenosha one is second avenue between 54th and 56th Street. And the adjacent plaza
known as plas day to way. So we run several city blocks. It's completely full of vendors and
way down south Pleasant Prairie. Pleasant Prairie is on Lake Andrea. And within Prairie Springs Park
just off of Highway 165, we are in the western shore of Lake Andrea. So you have live music there too.
You got to book bands and everything. That's a project. This whole thing sounds like a project.
In the summer, we have two bands every Saturday. In the winter market, we have a group
every Saturday. And in Pleasant Prairie, we have bands every time we have an event there. So
we have a lot of bands. The bands really like playing there. It's there because they're
really close to the people that are listening. And there's a great vibe. So the bands, we don't
have trouble signing groups up. Usually it's a lot of groups that want to play there. We have a
little committee that sort of certs through and picks out the music. So we want to have the
appropriate thing, the appropriate kind of music for the events. And it's really gives a good
atmosphere to the experience of being at the market. The market isn't just about buying
the stuff. It's about the atmosphere that's surrounded. So last week I hand on Joseph
Williams, lead singer of Toto. I can get Toto here. He said, yeah, he said to me, you know,
nice concert. Do you want to hang? I said, yeah, hang. I'll get him the Toto. We'll be at your
next function. Look at that. We're in. Let's see what else we got here. I wanted to hit
a few minutes left. So what are my missing here that you want to get in the last minute or two?
Well, this is actually our 24th outdoor season that's coming up. So we've been over on Second
Avenue for over two decades. And over the course of those two decades, we have grown. For example,
when I started here about a little over five years ago, we had a little over a hundred vendors
during the course of the outdoor season. And over those past five years, we've more than doubled
to over 200. So we're showing a trajectory of growth, both in terms of the number of vendors
and the number of customers. And along with that, the quality of the vendors.
When does the winter one start, by the way? Winter one starts. It would be the second week of November.
So you really don't have much downtime, do you?
Well, we can be off on Christmas if the 25th is on the Saturday. Just prior to Christmas,
we have the big Christmas event at the Stella where we have thousands of people who come through
vendors with a lot of vendors there in Santa Claus and all of that. So we're a full-year operation.
Well, thank you. Andrea Forciani is here executive director of the Kenosha Kamen Markets,
John Collins, board president of the Kenosha Kamen Markets. Well, good luck. The winter market
runs through early April and they kick right in with the regular outdoor market. And though,
congratulations, how many years now? So we are 24th outdoor season on May 2nd.
So you finally have a down pat? You know what you're doing? I think we're good now.
It's all good. Thank you guys for coming in. Thank you for having us. Thank you.
Thank you Forciani. Time to come in.