Best Market Ever

If you can believe this, we had our best market ever two weeks ago, and in the face of heavy competition. As I mentioned, we have a new neighbor, Samosa Man, who is a nice guy but is a bit of a charmer and a quintessential salesman. He pours it on hard trying to get people to stop and eat his stuff, and he's a fairly established businessman who has a restaurant somewhere up north. He used to have a place in Montpelier that place closed down, but I'm pretty sure he has a business somewhere else. Whatever be the case, he's the real deal, and he has name recognition.

We had mixed feelings about having him next to us because obviously he takes customers away, but it's also good for the overall health of the market to have good offerings to the public. One thing that does make it challenging is that he jumps on people as they walk by, and on the one hand it works, but on the other I'm sure it turns some people off. It reminds me of being in NYC when you walk by a restaurant and the host jumps out and tells you to eat at their place. My first impulse is to immediately walk away.

Either way, even though this guy is aggressive, we still did okay, so I can't complain. The market was busy, probably because it was a beautiful day, and people came in full force for our falafels despite the fact that we don't promote them. We like to think they sell themselves. I could never see myself as a salesman, though I could probably pull it off if I had to.

It should be interesting to see how the next few weeks turn out. Until then, thanks for reading, and thanks to auntneecey for the pic.