The calls for Cleveland to cede control of the West Side Market are getting louder.
On Jan. 28, in a Sound of Ideas Community Tour forum convened by ideastream, the city’s Chief Operating Officer Darnell Brown was one against 200 as the crowd at Market Garden Brewery expressed dissatisfaction with city management.
“We believe in the value of public discourse, whether it’s pro or con,” Brown said as the forum wrapped. “I hear a lot of what’s going on. When I go back I will have a very pointed conversation with the mayor.”
If you turn to today’s forum section, you’ll see Brent Larkin’s opinion of the mayor’s stewardship of the market (hint, it’s not favorable).
And while discussion about ideas to better manage the market, including whether a nonprofit board should take control, is needed and healthy, there’s a much easier fix that can be applied right now. It doesn’t involve trying to move a glacial bureaucracy at City Hall to improve what ails the West Side Market. In fact, you can do it yourself.
Shop.
That’s it. Show up. Buy something delicious. Do it often. The rest of the problems will eventually be worked out, but without paying customers, it’s all for naught.
And don’t worry about parking, either. Yes, there’s a city-owned lot there now. And construction may have driven regulars away because there was nowhere to park. But now there are plenty of spaces, and parking is free for 90 minutes, a buck an hour after that. You can buy a lot in 90 minutes.
Bob Holcepl has run City Roast Coffee since 1999 at the market. In 2007, he opened Crepes de Luxe in the stand next door (From the menu: The savory “La Chevre” is comfort wrapped in crepe, if you’re into goat cheese.)
“I was there nine months when someone came up and said, ‘What happened to Euclid Sausage? I shop from him all the time!’ I said, ‘Well, they closed. We took over almost a year ago,’” said Holcepl. “He obviously didn’t shop there all the time. If you claim you are a regular supporter of the market, the minimum ticket for that title should be once a month.”
When he said that, I realized I’m guilty -- as many of us are -- of supporting the market in spirit, but not enough in patronage. Once a month should be doable. Maybe more. I started with a lunchtime visit Wednesday.
“I’m not going to ask you to come once a week; those days are gone,” said Don Whitaker, who runs D.W. Whitaker meats and is the president of the West Side Market Tenants Association. “But once a month would help.”
Holcepl equates market goers to churchgoers.
“There are a handful of people that go every day. There are people that go once a week. Most churchgoers and most West Side Market shoppers come only on holidays. But we sell food every day,” he said.
“What do people eat the rest of the year?” asked Diane Dever, who operates the cheese stand her mother, Irene, started in 1971. “I just don’t get it.”
Narrin Carlberg, who expanded her Narrin’s Spices and Sauces stand in October, doubling her space, wonders why there are so many who come so infrequently to the Market.
“If you want to save this building, and pass this tradition on to the next generation, it all starts with you,” she said. “If you don’t shop the rest of the year here, the butcher will not be around just for the holiday or for your special occasion.”
All of the recent publicity over the vacancies at the market, mostly in the produce arcade, and the drumbeat for management change has given some in the public the wrong idea.
“A woman came up to me and said, ‘I am so sorry to hear the market is closing.’ We’re not closing! She saw something and didn’t read the whole thing, “ said Holcepl.
“I get that asked an insane amount of times, I mean like 10 times a day every day,” said Amanda Czuchraj, who manages the stand for J&J Czuchraj Meats.
The West Side Market, despite infrastructure problems that have frustrated vendors, is in an architecturally gorgeous historic landmark building that is more than 100 years old. It’s easy to get caught up in that, to take Uncle Bill from Virginia there when he visits. But it’s not just a place to see.
“People come like tourists and take a picture. We don’t charge admission to get in here. We are a grocery,” said Carlsberg.
Nia Gatewood had just purchased a bottle of Pope’s Smoking River Hot Sauce (a local product) when she stopped to tell me she was sorry she didn’t shop at the market “as often as I would like.”
So how often is that for the Great Lakes Brewing Company hostess?
“Once or twice a week,” she said.
That’s a pious patron, using Holcepl’s church example.
For the rest of us, once a month for a pork shoulder, a bottle of hot sauce, a block of cheese, a cup of coffee and a bag full of delicious oranges like the ones I got from Harb’s Produce would be enough.
“I think it would be great,” Gatewood said, “if more people came.”
More about the West Side Market:
To fix the West Side Market, should Cleveland step aside? — Michael K. McIntyre
City pledges funding to West Side Market as closed vendor’s social media post creates stir
‘I don’t see changes’: West Side Market vendor responds to city’s statement about improvements