After two weeks of cancellations due to the rain, the Downtown SLO Farmers' Market has returned.
According to Downtown SLO officials, over 100 vendors take up 5 blocks of Higuera Street.
KSBY News spoke with local businesses from the market who shared how their sales were impacted by the recent cancellations.
Bread Bike Bakery is one of many vendors that participates in several farmers' markets throughout the week in San Luis Obispo County.
Co-owner Matt Gamarra says he sees a lot of customers stop by their booth at the Downtown SLO Farmers' Market on Thursdays.
But the cancellations over the last two weeks took a toll on sales.
“Unfortunately, it was pretty rainy on Thursday the past two weeks and so that's yeah, a big part of our sales each week,” said Gamarra. “But not only that is we have regular customers that go to that market and get products from us.”
With the recent cancellation occurring the week of Valentine’s Day, the co-owner of Euphoria, Katy Hemler, says they were anticipating a bigger outcome.
“Valentine's Day. I mean, it's a big week for us and not having farmers was huge,” said Hemler. “The week before that, that was hard, too. It's our busiest day of the week. So, yeah, we were we were pretty bummed.”
Hemler says she lost thousands of dollars.
“We probably lost about 5,000,” said Hemler. "If you combine those two farmers days that we were not able to open.”
Aasim Sajjad, the owner of Shalimar Restaurant, says he was notified a day before the cancellation occurred last week, so his team only prepared the amount of food they were going to serve at his restaurant.
“We adjust our labor and food costs and we prepare only the food where we use, but not the farmer's market,” said Sajjad. “It's good to be notified like a day before And it didn't impact [us] that much, but sales came down like 10 to 15% for that Thursday night.”
The Downtown SLO Farmers' Market opens at 6 p.m. and wraps up at 8:30 p.m. on Thursdays.
