MACHIAS, Maine — It may be January, but the Machias Marketplace is busy every Thursday selling fresh, locally produced food, including greens.
On Thursday, Jan. 7, the market opened to brisk sales as area residents came in for eggs, milk, cheese, green vegetables, root vegetables, and a variety of breads and baked goods.
“It will quiet down around noon,” owner Inez Lombardo said. “People are still coming in early because they don’t want to miss out.”
Lombardo, who calls herself the “market mistress,” started the venture about eight or nine years ago. It has operated at its current location, downstairs from Machias Hardware on Main Street, since 2010, she said.
The market is open one day a week year-round.
Lombardo does not grow or sell anything of her own at the market, she said, but started the market as a means of connecting herself and others with fresh food. She said she has anywhere from six to 25 food suppliers, depending on the time of year.
“I started this to provide a link between farmers and customers that [previously] didn’t exist,” she said.
For example, one of her egg suppliers later also began bringing in small amounts of corn and squash to sell.
“Because we’re small, he didn’t have to have a whole lot to start with us,” she said.
The marketplace also serves more well-established growers such as Kim Roos of Garden Side Dairy at Hatch Knoll Farm in Jonesboro. She uses the market as an outlet for the farm’s goat milk cheese and blueberries.
“We love being here because it’s our local market,” said Roos, who moved to Maine from Connecticut in 2000 and wanted to become a homesteader.
She started with a few goats, which led to inquiries from people looking for goat milk products.
“We had strangers knocking on our door,” she said.
Now the farm is successful enough to offer not only food products but also classes in cheese making and the various aspects of farming.
Another supplier, Darrell Hinerman of Cutler is considering making and selling sauerkraut in addition to the vegetables he already sells.
In order to do so, he would have to get his kitchen certified by the state.
“There’s a lot of licensing issues,” he said.
Still, he is considering it.
“I’m going to see if it’s viable,” he said.
Customers such as Marcia Coffin of Marshfield come to the marketplace every week. Coffin, who has been a customer for about four years, said she comes for “whatever [Lombardo] happens to have that looks good that day.
“I usually just come in and check out what she’s got,” said Coffin. “I’m a regular.”
That day she was there with her friend, Susie Goding of Marshfield, who comes once in awhile.
“I was looking for the veggies — and desserts,” Goding quipped.
Coffin said she has gotten to know a lot of people by coming to the market.
Lombardo said the market serves as a social hub.
“What I really love is when people come in and they haven’t seen each other in a long time and they’ll stand there and talk,” she said. “I encourage that.”
During the summer, she puts chairs outside for people who want to stay and talk because, inside the market, it’s crowded.
“Food is what brings us all together,” she said.
She said she encourages her three employees and three volunteers to chat with customers and get to know them, especially now, because winter customers offer the strongest support.
“I want us to know them,” Lombardo said.