The city of Krugerville kicked its market season off, despite the weather, by packing Woodland Park with a plethora of vendors.
The market board, sat almost exclusively by its own vendors, uses its connection to the event to make it as positive as it can be, co-chair Yesika Horton explained.
“Being a vendor and helping run the market, I see the insides of vendors complaints and compliments,” Horton said. “All the input we get, good or bad, we try to adjust to and make it better.”
She said the vendor-driven aspect of the market has been a large point of success.
“We’ve had people who aren’t vendors on the committee in the past and it’s just hard being here six hours on a Sunday, but it’s our job as vendors,” Horton said.
Mayor Jeff Parrent agreed.
“It’s something the city doesn’t have to oversee,” Parrent said. “Obviously we support it, and are a big part of it, but we don’t manage it. They do a great job.”
As evidence of that support, Parrent said he opened the back gate on his nearby building complex to allow additional parking, as the park’s lot was full.
“The biggest concern is the parking,” Parrent said. “We’ve got people circling five or six times looking for spots, so I opened my back gate and let them park right there. It’s overwhelming in terms of the sense of pride I have in the job our board does for the farmer’s market.”
In addition to its stable of 50 vendors on Saturday, the market featured five food trucks offering diverse cuisine, several food and drink stalls, and several activities and competitions.
“We want to cater to every part of DFW, so if we can cater to people, we’ll do the drive,” said Sophia Adisson of Sophia’s Haitian Cuisine. “We’ll drive further than that even, like 3-4 hours.”
Adisson and her husband bring Caribbean options to the BBQ- and street-taco-saturated area.
“I’ve had Sophia’s for three years now,” Adisson said, sharing her inspiration for the truck. “It was the lack of Caribbean cuisine in the DFW [area], so I figured, ‘Why not? It’s something different from the usual BBQ and tacos,’ so we bring something different.”
Competitions included a hotdog eating and pie-baking contest as well as a karaoke competition with gift cards for prizes. For less competitive activities, the market had a collection of obstacles for kids to climb on and a new inflatable axe throwing stall.
“For this season, this might be our max number until we figure out the kinks we’ve had tonight,” Horton said. “This might be our peak as far as number of vendors, though we might adjust for December when we have our tree lighting.”
