CUMMING, Ga. — Tuesday, May 19 will be a big day for Halcyon. For the first time, the mixed-use development will offer a farmers’ market which will run from 4 to 7 p.m. every Tuesday through October. According to David Silver, General manager of Halcyon, each vendor will be separated by 10 feet in the parking lot behind Cherry Street Brewpub.
“We realize what's going on right now is a sensitive manner, but at Halcyon, we've taken everything very seriously and taken a lot of steps to promote keeping healthy and keeping social distancing with our signage,” Silver said. “We will have our Halcyon sanitation station as well, where patrons can have a mask, they can have hand wipes, they will have access to hand sanitizers, everything we can think of to make it a very safe environment for everybody.”
The market will be managed by Joern Seigies, who was recently in charge of the Vickery Village Farmers’ Market.
“Vickery is still going. I'm just not managing that anymore. Someone else is managing that, and it's just not open at the moment,” Seigies said. “A lot of the vendors, as you can imagine, I met through Vickery and through other markets. At Vickery, the plan is to keep going. That's a Thursday morning market, and this is a Tuesday afternoon market, so it's another option for vendors and for customers.”
He said Halcyon is a perfect space for a farmers’ market, because of the open layout. Currently, they have 20 vendors on board and will allow no more than 25, until social distancing guidelines are relaxed, Seigies said.
“We want to make it as comfortable as possible for the customers,” he said. “The only samples that we’re allowing are pre-packaged samples. I know we have a sausage vendor and he does very well when he's grilling his sausage. He can't do that at the moment.”
Following weeks of isolation under Georgia’s stay-at-home order, Seigies said he thinks this is a great time to open a farmers’ market.
“Through this COVID-19 situation, there is a demand I think for local foods, and I believe some other markets are opening in the near future too,” he said. “Customers, from what I'm reading, are kind of clamoring for it. They want to get out there, and they miss the vendors. They want to be outside. I think everybody's ready for this right now.”
Want more Cumming news? Follow us on Facebook.
RELATED: