(Credit: Steve Thurston, 2023)
Sahm Reyes has started the Saratoga Springs Night Market at the Palette Community space on Broadway.
A pop-up market in Saratoga Springs aims to give smaller retailers a chance to attract Broadway shoppers for a fraction of the price normally charged for that level of access. The Night Market is the brainchild of Sahm Reyes, creator of Caffeine Queens, the company that has created the patent-pending, reusable coffee “brewer bottle” that brews and holds coffee for on-the-go drinking.
She told FoothillsBusinessDaily.com that the idea came to her as she has been going to pop-ups, expos and other retailing opportunities and paying $600 or more in vendor fees per day.
“I don’t feel like they’re attainable for smaller businesses,” Reyes said, adding that she was surprised no on thought of doing this before. “The demand is so great, we had to increase the frequency. We started with one and now we have six every month.”
The Night Market at 480 Broadway, Lower Level, in Saratoga Springs, asks just $100 in vendor fees for Friday and Saturday night. The Broadway entrance is next door to the Outdoorsman. There is also a lower level back door off Maple Avenue.
Some of the vendors have included retailers of stained glass ornaments, crystals, food, candles, organic beauty products, jewelry and other items.
The pop-up is open most Fridays through July from 5 to 8 p.m. and most Saturdays from 4 to 8 p.m. Reyes said this intentionally keeps the market from competing directly with the Saratoga Springs Farmers Market and will attract visitors after a day at the Saratoga Race Course in July. The market officially launched in April.
“The foot traffic is pretty decent,” Reyes said, adding that they are figuring out how to handle all of the expected foot traffic during track season.
She said that she and Kirsten Voege, of KIRated Communications, are working together on this project. Voege is a freelance marketing specialist. Both women are part of the Palette Community.
“This is our phase one of three,” Reyes said. “We want to kind of roll this into a full-on resource center, where you can come, scale and grow your business.
“The idea is we don’t want them [vendors] to keep coming to these pop-ups, we want them to create enough cash flow to then do bigger, better expos and stuff like that.”
The location is the daytime home of the Palette Community, the shared workspace created by Catherine Hover as a way to help and promote women entrepreneurs.
Hover said the concept of the Night Market, which also aims to promote women-owned businesses, follows that of Palette.
It “puts into practice so much of what we do here,” Hover said. She and Palette founding member Marcella Hammer appreciated the way the market lifts women-owned businesses and gives them a Broadway address for a couple nights a week.
More night markets may be “in the cards,” Reyes said. She is looking for a coordinator to help her as she is essentially running two small businesses at this point.
She is also still attending pop-up markets, expos and other retail opportunities where she can sell her brewer bottle. She will be in Las Vegas for one weekend in May to sell her brewer bottle at a home expo.
“It’s basically a tumbler that you can make and take [coffee] anywhere,” she said. She estimates that each tumbler saves more than 1,000 paper cups. Year-to-date, she has sold about 200 bottles.
Reyes, a native of Guam, hopes to expand the business nationally, though she was not offering details on that at this time.
April Night Market Dates
- Friday 5-8pm April 14, 21, 28
- Saturday 4-8pm April 15, 22, 29
May Night Market Dates
- Friday 5-8pm May 5, 19, 26
- Saturday 4-8pm May 6, 20, 27
June Night Market Dates
- Friday 5-8pm June 2, 9, 23
- Saturday 4-8pm June 3, 10, 24
July Night Market Dates
- Friday 5-8pm July 7, 21, 28
- Saturday 4-8pm July 8, 22, 29