Red Bank’s popular farmers market makes its traditional Mother’s Day debut Sunday. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
It’s time to polish momma’s apple, locavores.
Red Bank’s ever-popular, always-growing open-air emporium, the Red Bank Farmers’ Market, returns to the blacktop of The Galleria on Mother’s Day for its 12th season of dishing out homegrown fruits, vegetables and miscellaneous wares.
“All our main guys are coming back,” said George Sourlis, owner of the hosting site of the market, The Galleria.
That means upwards of 35 of your favorite purveyors of locally-grown bites, from fresh vegetables and fruits to oils and breads, plus a list of trinkets and assorted goods crafted from some of the most talented artisans in the area, said Megan Prenderville, of Frame To Please, which returns for its eighth year to the market.
“The vendors are all artisans. They make their crafts and I think that’s a lot different than just having a retail space,” Prenderville said. “It’s really wonderful when you’re able to speak directly with the person that produced the food for you. And they’re all really talented.”
Also making a return to the borough’s breezy bazaar is Adam Sobel’s Cinnamon Snail organic and vegan mobile kitchen.
“Hell yeah,” he said, when asked if he’d come back for a fifth year.
Sobel, who’s still pushing to get space to park and sell his wildly popular dishes on a borough street, has continued in the off-season to push his product on the streets of New York City and Hoboken, and this past year, he said, “has been record-breaking. We’ve had some extremely busy days.”
“I’m sure it’s going to be great in Red Bank. I can’t wait to get back and serve the community,” said Sobel, of Chestnut Street. “I’ve been looking forward to this all winter.”
The Cinnamon Snail will be there every Sunday through the market’s season, except the second Sunday of each month, when cohort and longtime downtown retailer Patti Siciliano of Funk and Standard will set up a spot to sell Sobel’s creations, along with her recently-launched Yummy Yummy Good Stuff stuff.
Not in the plans this year is The Galleria’s construction of a parking deck, Sourlis said. The plans, which have hit another delay, could get moving in the next few months, but Sourlis assured redbankgreen that when construction does start, the market will remain in some capacity. But that’s highly unlikely this season, he said.
“The market will never be affected,” he said. “We would make alternate plans.”
Sourlis also said he and and his team are planning some special additions to this year’s market, but they’re still in the works so he’s keeping it under wraps.
But for now, he said, “We’re looking forward to Sunday, and hopefully the weather will cooperate.”
Weatherbot says it likely will. The forecast says it’ll be partly sunny with a 30-percent chance of showers, and highs in the upper 60s.
The market runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Sunday through mid-November.
