Winter 2017 Red Apple

Far and away the toughest market we ever produced. In October 2017 we got the keys for the defunct Imperial Lanes bowling alley in Rainier Valley. The place seemed like a dream come true and we started right to work, but the more we learned about the venue the more we realized it just wasn’t safe. Too many structural and safety systems were failing beyond our resources and ability to deal with, so we made the tough call to shut it down and move on. After a 3-week search we moved the whole kit-and-kaboodle into the former Red Apple at 23rd and Jackson in Seattle’s Central District. And that's when the trouble really started. In a scant few weeks we had to strip all of the old shelving from the former grocery store, clean decades worth of food grime left behind, and create usable spaces for vendor booths. In the midst of doing all this, a gang of scrappers broke into the building one night to steal as much electrical wire and copper plumbing as they could, leaving us with no power and a flood throughout the building. We managed to safely turn on a handful of electrical circuits, but never restored running water. In the midst of all this, we caught the emotional flack of a community whose only grocery store had been shut with no warning to make way for expensive new development. There were at least 5 moments when we could have scrapped the project, and maybe should have, but instead we perserved and held a huge and memorable market that still causes tears of exhaustion when we remember it. This one nearly killed us, and was our last market for 18 months.