Time to say farewell.

Sadly, this will be the last week to order drive-thru service at the Temescal Farmers' Market. We've grown very fond of our curbside customers, many of whom have come through religiously over these last 7 months. We hope that this program was helpful in getting through a very strange and scary time. 


At Urban Village (UVFM), we are extremely proud of what our small team, along with the invaluable tech-partnership of SourceWhatsGood, were able to launch in such a short time. In addition to tripling up on the operational safety for the staff and customers attending our physical Farmers' Markets, we innovated this parallel "drive-thru" chanel to serve the safest farm-direct groceries to an additional 250 sheltering East Bay households, generating over $150,000 in additional local dollars that directly supported the survival of 40 local small family-farms and small-business food purveyors during a global pandemic, economic shutdown, and CA's worst fire season to date. It really does take a village, thank you for being a part of the solution with us!
 Last day to place orders is
11pm, Thursday, October 22
For final drive-thru pickup this Sunday, October 25th
Let's go out with a Bang!
We had supposed that the impacts of inclement weather and poor air quality days caused by increasing wildfires would see an uptick in drive-thru orders, keeping the service in demand beyond Covid-19, but to our surprise, that has not been the case. On bad weather and air days, the pre-orders dropped right along with attendance at the Farmers Market. Unfortunately, this last month the demand for Curbside has dropped by 50% making it impossible for us to keep up with the extra labor costs to operate the service. 

The Temescal Farmers Market itself will remain in full operation every single Sunday of the year, and it continues to be one of the absolute safest places to shop for your groceries. As always - we are open Rain or Shine, including throughout the Holidays. On November 1, we are happy to welcome back a few of our sorely missed Hot-Food vendors such as Andy & Cindy's Thai Cuisine and Brittany Crepes. We hope to see you there!
 

Pre-Ordering Will Still Be Possible:

You can continue to pre-order goods from participating vendors using the WhatsGood App, Starting November 1, customers (or their proxy) can walk into the market to pick up their pre-orders at each individual farm stand. 

Benefits to the "Vendor Pickup System" are:

  1. Skip the main line to grab your pre-packaged orders directly from each participating vendor. 

  2. Savings: UVFM's $2.99 service fee will no longer be applied since UVFM will no longer aggregate and load the groceries.

  3. Helps Guarantee certain items that tend to sell out fast in the winter, such as eggs, meat, specialty items, and baked goods. 


In good times and bad times, we all have a role to play in upholding the infrastructures that reflect our values. For over 20 years, Urban Village has been a unifying bridge linking our neighboring urban and rural communities, championing the health of our shared ecological, economic, and social ecosystem. We can't do it without the strong convictions of our dedicated farmers, entrepreneurs, and loyal customers like you. Thank you!

In Growing Health,
- The Urban Village Farmers' Market Association