SASKATOON -- With more businesses reopening following the pandemic closures, the Saskatoon Farmers' Market will be opening a modified market starting Saturday.
While it’s welcomed by vendors, it also comes with uncertainty after a year of upheaval.
Michael Cavanaugh has been running Maduro Coffee at the market for five years and has been in business in the city for 30. This year is a lesson in adversity.
"There's been so much new with the market with the move from River Landing to here. We were just getting going and establishing a rhythm getting into the spring," Cavanaugh told CTV News.
Right now vendors are setting up, trying to get familiarized with the new rules: more spacing between booths, exact change required, a table to separate customers from vendors and different traffic patterns.
While Cavanaugh hopes customers will be itching to get out and enjoy this spring tradition, he’s also realistic.
“Everybody has a certain level of trepidation of meeting in public and it's going to take a while for that to become more normalized."
Farmers’ market executive director Erika Quiring said the market will be open Saturdays only for now and will be indoors and outdoors from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m.
Quiring asks that customers be patient as physical distancing measures are in place.
There will be 25 to 30 vendors inside which is about half of the normal number. That drop is due to increased spacing between booths.
"We’re in the process of hiring extra staff to do extra cleaning and we're going to have a greeter at the door to direct traffic plus we're putting some snow fencing at either end of the outside area so we can control access to the outside area."
That outside area in the parking lot will have about 20 vendors.
