S.D. Farmers Bazaar Gets Back to Business

The Farmers Bazaar, closed last May after a devastating fire, will resume full operation at a new downtown San Diego location next month.

As did the former market, the new Farmers Bazaar will aspire to offer shoppers a cornucopia of fresh produce, meat and fish. Restaurants and jewelry shops are also planned. The new warehouse at K Street and 7th Avenue is next to the original Farmers Bazaar location, now a parking lot for the new market.

The market has operated at limited capacity since June and now offers only produce and flowers. By mid-March, however, 18 vendors will occupy the 20,000-square-foot market.

“By the middle of February we should have a jewelry store,” said George May, the supervisor of the operation. “By the first of March, we should have the restaurants in, and we should be going full force by the middle of March.”

Even after the other tenants have moved in, the main attraction will remain the produce, May said.

From rapini, a green spice used in Italian sauces, to Asian pears, whose taste and texture are similar to a cross between an apple and a pear, to four different kinds of squash, the La Cresta Market at the bazaar offers a large selection of produce at prices that customers believe are significantly lower than those charged by supermarkets.

“You get good buys, and they’re awfully good and fresh,” said Wynne Flack, a part-time San Diego resident from Canada. “You’ve got such a good choice here, better than the markets. . . . We’ve got nothing like this in Canada.”

The roll-up doors, cement floor and large, institutional lamps hanging from the 30-foot ceiling reflect the bazaar’s warehouse origins. But they do not seem to deter shoppers.

“You never see a mouse here,” said a woman who has been shopping at the market for five years, a vocal advocate of the market who declined to give her name. “It’s a lot bigger than before, more room to move around in. It’s better. The fire helped,” she said.

Jesse Moreno, manager of the 10,000-square-foot produce stall, said sales are just keeping up with expenses. At $6,000 a month rent, costs are no different than what Moreno would have to pay if he were to operate his own store, he said.

But he is optimistic that extra vendors will boost business. “It will get a lot busier soon, because the restaurants will be here, fish and meat market and some shops, so we expect to do about twice the sales we are doing now,” Moreno said. About 2,000 customers a day troop through the market.

The costs of doing business, such as rent and salaries, have gone up significantly since the fire at the original location. But, at the same time, business has increased about 50%, Moreno said.

Moreno said connections with farmers in all parts of the country and a large sales volume make lower prices possible. On an average day, he sells more than 4,000 pounds of bananas, 40 boxes of apples and 80 boxes of lettuce

The rest of the bazaar is filling in fast, May said, with space renting for $2.50 a square foot per month, twice the rent charged at the old location.

Mexican and Italian restaurants have both signed leases that begin in March, and May hopes to find a Chinese restaurant. The 600-square-foot areas available for the restaurants will rent out at $1,500 a month.

And the effects of the restaurants should spill over to the other enterprises, May said.

“We are getting more people buying produce than we had before, but we used to have a terrific lunch crowd,” May said. “We expect that crowd to return, and that’s expected to increase sales all around.”

The bazaar, owned by San Diego businessman and developer Tom Hom, is in its 15th year of operation. The downtown market attracts people from all over the county--as far away as Oceanside and Escondido, May said.