Cabbages the size of bowling balls. Cherries that make the best pie. Black pepper pasta with goat cheese. The kinds of sausage about which Clevelanders used to sing songs.
The iconic West Side Market has roots going back to 1840 at the corner of West 25th Street and Lorain Avenue. It is Cleveland’s oldest standing market, and one of the few surviving larger markets of its kind in the region.
The Market is now well into a major transition. Earlier this year, the City of Cleveland signed over the day-to-day management of the Market to the nonprofit Cleveland Public Market Corporation (CPMC). The city still owns the land and its buildings.
For many government and community leaders, vendors and shoppers, it was time. The Market is running in the red and had too many vacant vendor booths and outdated facilities. It had a reputation of being a somewhat unfriendly
consumer space.
“Some people come to the Market and just want to sit down and eat their bratwurst,” says Rosemary Mudry, the market’s first executive director, beginning her role in January. “But there is almost no seating here. People buy food and then have to stand over a trash can to eat it.”
The new Market Master Plan, with more places to sit, would help eliminate the need to juggle your Cambodian sticky rice in a banana leaf wrapper while
balancing the bags of produce you bought. But the Master Plan is, of course, also much more elaborate than just chairs. Its initiatives are ambitious.
“It would be very premature to have a Master Plan completion date, but we knew going into this that it would be a five-year endeavor,” says Mudry. “It’s very complicated, with millions of proposed dollars in renovations and
upgrades to HVAC, electrical and refrigeration, while at the same time ensuring the Market will be fully operational. But we are all in because we know the challenges are worth it.”
Proposed Changes
Mudry divides the Market’s proposed physical changes into two categories, the first being “changes that are long overdue.”
“It wasn’t that people didn’t recognize these things. Some things they tried to do incrementally. But some projects were just too large and complicated, like replacing the refrigeration system in the basement of the building or updating the East Arcade to include air conditioning and coolers that would allow vendors to keep their products fresher and of highest quality. These system upgrades are ways that will help make it easier for the merchants to do business,” says Mudry.
Proposed changes are also designed to make things more convenient: No more gates or traffic jams in the parking lot; making all areas ADA accessible; and a courtyard hallway with retractable glass walls that connects buildings, among other changes.
Ruby Thomas is manager of Ohio City Pasta’s West Side Market stand and a board member of the United West Side Market Tenants Association. Her stand was one of the first to be renovated with a new sink, new flooring and upgraded electrical. Ohio City Pasta also began offering prepared foods in May, including hot lasagna and pasta salads.
“There are already Market improvements, including high dusting of the walls. Maybe the customers don’t notice, but we do,” says Thomas, whose father, Gary Thomas, founded the business in 1990. “The overall morale of the market has improved, and that affects customer satisfaction.”
Optimizing the Market’s square footage is also a critical component to the Master Plan. Creating a mezzanine rental space (with a great view of the Market below) from an underutilized area would not only be a smarter use of space but generate additional income, helping keep vendor rents down, according to Mudry.
“You might come to this space as an event guest, but even if the Market is closed, become curious and come back the next day to shop. This is about bringing new people to the Market, too,” she says.
The Draw
But Clevelanders who have visited the Market with its 70-some merchants know its draw is more than bricks and mortar, although its architecture is impressive.
“If you need to buy meat, you can just go to a grocery store. So why go to the Market? Here you talk to the owner of the stand, learn about cuts of meat. Also, a lot of people are attracted to the Market because they learn about different food cultures. The Market has served the area’s immigrant communities, but it hasn’t always necessarily served all the immigrant communities in Cleveland,” says Mudry. “Mostly it has served European and
Middle East folk. But we haven’t seen a lot of Hispanic/Latino stands here or a large number of African American folks who have stands here.”
Mudry is hoping that over time, the “whole diaspora, the full breadth of Cleveland’s food culture, is represented at the Market.”
She sees other cultural food centers in Cleveland, including Little Italy or the newest Hispanic ventures, as “complementing, not competing” with each other.
Once the Market’s new shared kitchen space in the basement and a Teaching Kitchen on the second floor are up and running, the Market will welcome incubator food businesses. Varied trial opportunities will help determine if new products or fledgling catering endeavors can be turned into businesses. Individuals can experience what it is like to be a business owner and be in affordable space that does not require a huge investment. Entrepreneurs can then choose to stay at the Market, return to a particular neighborhood or operate in some manner out of both.
“I moved into the Market in September 2022,” says Alaina Caruso, owner and curator of The Home Pantry, which offers soups, jams, sandwiches, salads and more. “That was super exciting to me. I was really grateful to move into the space while the West Side Market was just starting to go through its transition. I wanted to be a part of that. I have been shopping at the Market my whole life. And as a chef for the past 15 years, it was always my first go-to spot to acquire ingredients.”
Caruso admits to being a bit concerned at first about being accepted by those she calls “generational vendors who have been there for 20, 40, 60 years. And there I was, a 30-year-old chick coming in,” she says. “I wanted to make sure that we were there not just for our customers, but for each other.”
For the most part Caruso found her fears ungrounded, as most vendors have been supportive of her and CPMC’s initiatives. She also credits the new nonprofit and its staff for being more visible and listening to vendors’ suggestions.
A Joint Effort
The City of Cleveland has committed $20 million to the Market’s plans, what Mudry calls about “a third of the funds required.” But it’s a sign, she believes, of the administration’s acknowledgment that the Market is important to the city and that a nonprofit is better able to manage it. Additional funding sources may include state and federal monies, including seeking new market tax credits and historic tax credits, as well as a significant capital campaign, foundation and corporate sources and philanthropy.
“We also want to become part of a network of other markets around the country in advocating for the critical role markets play in the food system and the small business ecosystem,” says Mudry.
Small but important improvements can be seen on an ongoing basis. Mudry invites shoppers to visit often and check them out. Better yet, “You can come every day and have a different lunch every day for a month,” she says. “I can have bratwurst one day, a salad one day, or just have a great pastry. That’s the beauty of this — the menu is endless.”
