When MidCity Makers Market announced it was ending the popular makers market on Government Street last year, a flood of community members expressed their disappointment on its goodbye Instagram post. The MidCity Makers Market had been the neighborhood’s go-to event to gift shop and discover local businesses and artists since 2016.
After a year to recharge and reimagine the concept, the popular market is returning to Mid City tonight—Friday, Dec. 15, from 6-9 p.m.—just in time for the holidays.
The event will include 20 local makers and businesses that sell gift and personal items like jewelry, soap, snacks, art and clothing. The market will be partnering with its neighboring businesses like Rad Dad, D’s Garden Center, The Parker Barber and Barracuda for food and drink specials. Barracuda will have a pop-up margarita station for drinks on-the-go, and Rad Dad will have THC seltzers to sample.
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“We always enjoyed doing it,” says market co-founder Paul Claxton. “It’s just myself, the Ellises (the owners of Mimosa Handcrafted) and Justin Lemoine. Everyone just got busy. Our kids got to that age where the way that we were doing it before consumed a little too much of our bandwidth.”
Though the quarterly markets ended last year, MidCity Makers Market was still brainstorming ways to uplift local businesses and pour into the community.
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This November during White Light Night, the collective held a soft opening for its first studio on Government Street. Local businesses, makers and artists can rent the space out for six months at a time and showcase their shop items in an inviting storefront. The studio is currently occupied by Puf Sweet, a food business that sells freeze-dried candies and desserts. It shares the same building as Rad Dad, a newly opened hemp store, and is next door to Barracuda. This developing dining and shopping strip will be the new home for future editions of the MidCity Makers Market.
“What I want to do in 2024 is host monthly markets but follow a format that I experienced in Austin, Texas,” Claxton says. “It was a very informal thing. There really wasn’t any marketing dollars behind it. But the businesses, even beyond retailers and restaurants, would stay open up a little bit later. It was kind of an open house, a community gathering, just a very easy neighborhood thing to do.”
Celebrate the return of MidCity Makers Market Friday, Dec. 15, from 6-9 p.m. It will be at 2558 Government St.