"How can you put $14 million into a shed?"
Sharon Wiszkon of Wiszkon Produce asked that question at a public meeting at Ninth Street Abbey back in 2012, when the city unveiled a master plan to remake Soulard Farmers Market into what planners called a regional destination. Wiszkon, a third-generation vendor by marriage, wasn't alone in her skepticism. She told the room her family wasn't interested in competing with Dierbergs or Schnucks on anybody's terms but their own. The plan called for ceiling fans, better lighting, a second-floor build-out, even a schedule change to add Sunday hours. Most of it never happened at that scale.
Fourteen years later, the city finally put real money into the building again. This time the number was smaller, the ambitions were narrower, and the vendors aren't fighting it. That contrast is the story worth understanding if you shop this market on a normal Saturday and have wondered what's actually different this year.
What $14 Million Almost Bought
The 2012 proposal came out of a process that included focus groups, an online survey, and shopper intercept interviews, all funneled through a Virginia-based consulting firm called URS. The pitch was aspirational: preserve the market's historic character while turning it into a bigger draw for regional shoppers and a better revenue generator for the city. Vendors heard something else. One farmer, who wouldn't put his name on the record, said the market didn't need a grand vision. It needed three unglamorous things: control the bird droppings, fix the bathrooms, add security.
Scott Schweiger, whose family has sold food at the market since 1884, sat on the Master Plan Steering Committee and came away more measured than Wiszkon. He said the plan wasn't set in stone and that the committee had been accommodating. But the underlying tension never resolved. A market built on razor-thin margins and generational stall leases was being asked to trust a renovation pitched in the language of destination marketing, and the people who actually worked the halls every Wednesday through Saturday weren't sure that language served them.
The $1.5 Million That Actually Landed
Fast forward to the investment the city describes as its biggest in the market in decades, and the difference in approach is obvious before you get to the dollar figure. Over roughly the past year, the city put $1.5 million into new roofing, fascia, and soffit over the vendor wings that run between 7th and 9th Streets, electrical updates, and tuckpointing across the entire market building. According to Bob Ray, the market's longtime manager, the payoff residents will actually feel is heat. Roughly 40 percent of indoor vendor stalls are getting heating systems installed in the internal halls, meaning a chunk of vendors who used to work a St. Louis winter in coats and fingerless gloves will have warmth for the first time.
"It's the biggest investment that the city has made in the farmers market in decades," Ray said.
Nobody is calling this a master plan. There's no talk of adding Sunday hours or building out a second floor. The market still runs Wednesday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with Saturday remaining the busiest day by a wide margin. What changed is the theory of what the building needed. Instead of trying to make Soulard Market into something bigger, the city fixed the parts that determine whether a vendor can physically make it through January.
Same Families, Two Different Fights
What makes the contrast land is that it's often the same people on both sides of it. Wiszkon's son, Greg, now serves as president of the vendor's association, and her grandchildren represent a fifth generation working stalls at the market. Schweiger's family, now more than 140 years deep at Soulard, still runs food operations there. These are not new tenants reacting to a fresh proposal. They're the same families who watched a $14 million plan stall out in committee meetings, and who are now on the receiving end of a $1.5 million fix that touches the roof over their heads and the wiring under their feet rather than the market's public image.
That continuity matters more than the dollar amount. A market that survives on multigenerational stall leases isn't looking for reinvention. It's looking for the building to keep standing and the lights and heat to keep working, which is a much lower bar and, it turns out, a much easier one for the city to actually clear.
What Actually Grew Out of the Stalls
The market's other function, one that predates any renovation debate, is as a low-cost place for a small food business to test itself before signing a commercial lease. Two names prove the model still works. Freddie Lee's Gourmet Sauces started as a Soulard stall and now sells in roughly 1,000 stores. Lona's Lil Eats did the same and went on to become a 2019 James Beard Award semifinalist before opening its own location. Both are graduates of a system where the entry cost is a stand rental instead of a storefront lease, which is exactly the kind of low-risk setting Ray points to when he talks about why the market still matters.
Newer names worth the walk
If you haven't been through the H-shaped halls in a while, a few current stalls are worth knowing by name rather than category. Sauce So Good, run by Keyon Watkins, sells a family-recipe barbecue sauce in mild and spicy versions, both vegan and gluten-free, alongside a dry rub and an all-purpose seasoning he hands out as samples most days he's there. Schweiger's Candies makes Monster Turtles, palm-sized pecan caramel candies, along with peanut brittle and chocolate-covered Oreos. Mylk and Hummus turns out seasonal dips like roasted beet and pepita hummus paired with Afghan naan. Hermann Handmade Soaps sells olive oil soap in scents like Calypso Spice and Patchouli with Lavender, along with shampoo bars and salves. Donut Man Stan has been making mini donuts at the market since 1979, longer than most of the market's current renovation debates have existed. And if you want to shop like someone who's done this before, Julia's Market pours a Bloody Mary with a housemade mix and garnishes like pickled asparagus and green beans, a tradition worth knowing given that Julia Soulard, who donated the land the market sits on in the early 1840s, is generally credited as the first female real estate developer west of the Mississippi.
The Rest of Fall at Soulard Market Park
The market building isn't the only thing on the calendar this season. The plaza connected to it stays busy through early fall:
- September 26 — The Soulard Concert Series wraps its season with a final show at Soulard Market Park starting at 6 p.m.
- October 9 and 10 — Soulard Oktoberfest returns to the same park, with the stein holding competition, live polka and brass bands, and family-friendly daytime programming before the crowd shifts later in the evening.
Neither event depends on the roof repairs or the new heating systems. Both depend on the same open plaza the market has used for decades, which is worth remembering the next time someone tells you a $1.5 million investment transformed the neighborhood. It didn't transform anything. It kept a 247-year-old institution from falling apart at the exact points where falling apart would have mattered most.
Why the Smaller Number Worked
The lesson from watching these two renovation attempts side by side isn't really about farmers markets. It's about the difference between fixing a place and reimagining it. The 2012 plan tried to answer a question nobody at the market was asking: how do we make Soulard Market compete for regional shoppers the way a big retailer does. The 2025 and 2026 work answered the question vendors had been asking since at least that same year: will the roof hold, will the wiring pass inspection, will a stall be warm enough in January that someone can still work it. The second question was smaller, cheaper to answer, and apparently the one that actually kept the place standing.
If you live in Soulard, you already know the market isn't going anywhere. What's worth noticing this year is why. It's not a bigger vision. It's a functioning roof.
If you're the kind of person who tracks a neighborhood at this level of detail, whether it's a renovation debate at the farmers market or what's quietly changing on the next block over, The Krummenacher Team pays attention to the same things day to day across Soulard and the rest of the St. Louis core. Reach out whenever you want a straight read on what's actually happening here, not the version written for search engines.
