Detroit Eastern Market Etikick

Hey there,
Mrs. Brother Nature Produce here opening up the conversation about Detroit etikick,and its etikick and not etiquette because well, Detroit is anything but proper or conventional. In order to get along here, if you don’t already know, you are gonna have to do things ‘modern standards’ might not agree with.

Let me give you an example; we’ll start with something simple and work up to the complicated subjects later.

1. Don’t be in a rush. Approximately 40,000 people shop at the market on a Saturday, so if you are in that big of a hurry you should stop at one of the grocery stores you probably passed on the way to the market.

2. For god’s sake don’t park in the vendor parking lots, you know, the ones adjacent to the sheds. There’s no sign that says you shouldn’t, but I’m saying it! First of all we have paid over $1,000 dollars for a stall under the sheds and a place to park. So when we have to stop working to move our vehicles and let you out, yer probably gonna get cussed out and it could have all been avoided if you had simply parked elsewhere.

3. Don’t expect the Che’ Pierre treatment when you come down here, that mean you gonna get treated like a Detroiter; you gonna get waited on more or less in the order you appeared at the table, people are gonna offer you unprompted advice, and your feet are gonna get rolled over by carts, strollers, and wagons. You’ll be expected to hold the door for people behind you, and most important whether you are paying in cash or tokens a customer is a customer. I better not hear that you pulled that suburban shit by stealing someones parking

4. Speakin of louies bring small bills $1s, 5s, 10s, a few 20s depending on who you buy from 50’s & 100’s are pushing it, like I said this ain’t the grocery store.

5. When yer walking around among thousands of people please, step to the side to chat and catch up with folks, when considering a purchase, or to organize money and bags, it’ll keep the traffic jams down and ease up to the collisions.

6. Consider making your kids walk; first of all its hard to get through the market with strollers, second they are gonna have to learn how to negotiate crowds eventually think of it as a teachable moment, and third all that walking will make yer kids ready for a nap.

7. The most important thing is to get to know your vendor/farmer; after all that is why you are braving the cold, heat, or crowds instead of going to the grocery store. You want local products that are actually fresh, that you can ask questions about so you can be exactly sure what you are getting be it cheap in bulk, chemical free, non-­gmo, grass fed or whatever. Your vendor/farmer also knows how to pick the perfect product for what you want to do, how to prepare it and preserve it, and what it goes nicely with. As a farmer/vendor myself I say the best part of the market is the relationships with my customers; growing up and old with them from single to married, through pregnancy and toddlers, kids off to college and healthier living priorities. There is a bond between us based on the trust.

Also local folks have banners vendors selling produce from the nearby warehouses don’t. So there you go, the basic manners of the market, and it’s the truth chile.

What do you think would make the Eastern Market better?

~Mrs. Brother Nature


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