Moonlighting at the Market
As an undergrad, Julia Mair took a job at the 32nd Street Farmers Market selling lettuce, micro greens and pea shoots for Alluvion Aeroponics. “I needed something to do on the side and I love going to farmers markets,” she says.
For Julia, now a full-time nursing student, and other vendors with nine-to-five jobs, classes, and other commitments, weekends are more of a concept than reality. But rising before dawn on Saturdays has its perks.
“Community is what I do it for,” Julia says. She even met one of her best friends at the market, artist Kat Zotti, who has a neighboring stall that specializes in hand-made jewelry and tiny pottery. “We instantly hit it off,” Julia says.
A concert pianist, music teacher, and Village Learning Place instructor, Daniel Wasse also sells Ethiopian vegan food with his wife Helen Tilahun at their market stand Korarima. Constantly switching gears isn’t a problem, Daniel says. “It’s not chaos; it means that time is hard to find sometimes.”
As newcomers to Baltimore six years ago, he and Helen found “The market was a good entryway into getting to know Baltimore and getting to know our neighborhood and getting to know the community,” Daniel says.
Korarima has deepened the couple’s ties to their native Ethiopia in unexpected ways. One frequent customer brought him in as a consultant and participant in ‘Ethiopia at the Crossroads,’ a major exhibition at the Walters Art Museum that closed earlier this year.
Monday to Friday, Craig Grabowski advises the government and intelligence community on multimedia projects. On alternating Saturdays, he slings waffles at the market.
The Baltimore Waffle Company began as a whim. Craig’s wife, Janin Hardin, had lived in Belgium as a kid and “couldn’t find a good Belgian waffle anywhere” in the Baltimore area, he says. The couple’s first waffles came off an antique waffle iron found on eBay, but booming sales led them to buy a faster electric version.
When his two sons were young, Craig often had to miss their weekend activities while he worked the griddle. That was tough, but over the years, it has paid off. His wife’s search for a decent waffle launched a lucrative business that helps pay for school tuition and home repairs, Craig says. “That’s the thing that really makes it worthwhile.”
While Craig and other vendors juggle their market duties with week-day responsibilities, Kayla Goldstein and Prateek Middha took the opposite approach. Both left full-time jobs to open Chachu’s Chai.
Their business, Chachu’s Chai, began as a side project to make “a little extra money,” Kayla says. When Chachu’s first opened, she was completing a graduate degree in landscape design while working full time as a planner for Baltimore City Recreation and Parks. As a bridge engineer, Prateek was putting in rewarding, but long hours. “We didn’t really ever plan on being small business owners, not in our wildest dreams,” Kayla says.
But after Chachu’s first successful season, she and Prateek exchanged their long work days for the life of chai, the spicy homemade-style drink that Prateek enjoyed growing up in India.
“I realized that I was missing out in life,” says Prateek, who still works part time as an engineer. Chachu’s Chai has allowed him the “freedom to spend more time with friends and family”.
Whether it’s a side hustle or a full-time gig for these vendors, each contributes a distinct flavor and spirit to the lively cultural mix that is the 32nd Street Farmers Market.
— Stephanie Shapiro (right) has been a 32nd St. Farmers Market regular for nearly 40 years. She lives in Tuxedo Park with husband Tom and dog Archie.