Holly and Scott Scichilone. (Image: Mark Leger/Huddle)
The Saint John City Market continues to offer its services during the COVID-19 pandemic with many of its businesses adapting to online business and pick-up and delivery options.
Assistant Market Manager Andrew MacDonald says the situation is hard for everybody, but that spirits are up at the City Market and their businesses are staying positive.
“It’s one of those weird situations where you know you want to be open and you want to be able to be that service to the public and I think that everybody is doing well with that,” said MacDonald.
“We’ve had a lot of new customers and a lot of new faces,” said H&S Meats’ Scott Scichilone. “Realistically, you would be hard-pressed not to be able to find what you’re looking for if you come to the City Market.”
Two of the market’s essential service vendors, Pete’s Frootique and H&S Meats, are operating business as usual. Howard’s Convenience is still open as well, but the popular Saturday market vendors have suspended business until further notice.
Naan Ya Business is open for take-out on Thursday, Friday and Saturdays, as is The Baking Stone from 11 am – 1 pm, while North Market Seafood and Jeremiah’s Deli are offering call-in orders for curbside pickup.
At this point in the pandemic, many of the vendors are utilizing some form of online availability, which MacDonald is supporting through advertising on the market’s social media channels.
“We’re following along with everything that’s coming from the municipal, provincial and federal governments, making sure that we’re keeping in line with all the directives,” he said.
“We also realized that things may change; we’re happy to be able to maintain these opening hours at this point.”
MacDonald also said the City Market is working on an online platform where people will be able to shop the city market’s wares, produce, fish and meat, then come and do a pickup on South Market Street.
Scichilone said that they have seen a good increase in the amount of interest in deliveries and curbside pickup.
“This is something that we will make available to as many vendors as possible and then we’ll figure out some kind of a system for putting that together,” said MacDonald. “I guess the idea is being able to help some of the vendors that aren’t able to be open right now, and also the vendors that are open to give them another option for shoppers.”
The goal is to have the platform up and running in the next couple of weeks.
The market’s staff, along with members from the city’s parks and recreation department, are keeping the space safe and heavily sanitized. Most functions in the market have been temporarily eliminated except for cleaning and sanitization and to keep the building secure.
The situation is difficult for everyone, but Scichilone says people are supportive and the market businesses still open are doing a good business.
“We are seeing some new faces and hopefully that this can bring a little bit of rejuvenation to the City Market and the uptown area,” he said.
MacDonald is keeping an eye on small businesses, on a micro and macro level, and is optimistic about the support given to small local businesses uptown and around the city.
“I really would like to encourage the people do look for those local options because small local businesses, those are the ones that are going to have the hardest time getting up and out of this at the end,” he said.
“When this all blows over, I really hope that people see how great it is to use the local options and hopefully we can keep going with that and make it even more of the norm.”
This story was originally published on Huddle.Today – content partner with Acadia Broadcasting Limited
