By Sarah Lombardo
The Saratoga Farmers Market is shopping for a new home.
After two years in the Saratoga Village, the operators of the weekly spring and summer event have announced that it will be moved. Citing traffic problems, South Bay Farmers Market co-owner Melanie Defe said the location at the corner of Big Basin Way and Los Gatos-Saratoga Road just wasn't working anymore.
"The only thing that we were concerned about was getting a site that people can get to and a place that would not hold up traffic," Defe said.
Defe refuted rumors that the market would be leaving Saratoga altogether. "That was never any intention of any of us," she said. "Our primary concern is to find a place that works."
Councilman Don Wolfe, an active member of the Saratoga Business Development Council, from which the Market Days idea was born, said he was under the impression that the farmers market needed better exposure to keep local farmers participating in the event. Wolfe said the event might not be thriving as well as it could, adding that it would be a shame if the community lost the market.
"It's something that everyone would like to retain, and by that I mean the merchants and the residents," he said.
But some Saratoga merchants said the market's move has nothing to do with traffic and everything to do with a grudge stemming from the Starbucks Coffee Company issue a few months ago. A few business owners have claimed that Kookie Fitzsimmons, the owner of Corinthian Flowers, is upset that Village merchants did not support Starbucks' proposal to move to her site. And that, they said, has made her refuse permission to use her business' parking lot for the farmers market.
Fitzsimmons said the claims are outrageous and just small-town gossip at work.
"No, I am not still upset. That is absolutely ridiculous," she said. "My understanding was that [the owners of South Bay Farmers Market] were going to decide if they were even going to have a farmers market or not because it hadn't received a lot of support from the community. This has absolutely nothing to do with the Starbucks issue."
Fitzsimmons said she has always enjoyed the market and will be sad to see it move. "I'm a very old-fashioned person, and I love to see community events like that," she said. "I hope they continue to have it. But I think the location is a big question mark."
Defe echoed Fitzsimmons' assertion that bad feeling over Starbucks had nothing to do with the move: "I would not even comment on that," Defe said. "If [Fitzsimmons] is upset, she never indicated that to me. The owners [of the building where Corinthian Flowers is located] told me they were just interested in keeping their parking lot open. And, frankly, I don't blame them. ...[The market] should be moved anyway."
But to where? Defe said she and her business partner are looking at all sorts of places, from one of the parking districts to open lots around town. She said she is sure they'll be able to find a good spot to continue the event and also said they plan to choose a different day on which to hold it. In past years, the Saratoga Farmers Market has been open on Saturdays.
But, Mitch Cutler owner of the Village restaurants La Fondue and Blue Rock Shoot, said he is not hopeful that any location can be found to equal the market's past site.
"I don't see another spot that can work," Cutler said. " I just don't think that there is any other location with that visibility."
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, March 12, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.