This is the third part of my series on seven things the Broadway Market can do to be a year-round destination.
In this installment, I am going to touch on the Broadway Market’s hours of operation.
A cursory look at some other markets around the country and I found that a lot offer later hours on all or a few days of the week and offer Sunday hours.
The Broadway Market has been open 8am-5pm six days a week (Monday-Saturday) for as long as I can remember. In this day and age, those hours just don’t cut it in retail anymore. The market needs to adapt to the market.
The market doesn’t need to radically change its hours either.
Let’s start by having it open a few nights a week to 7pm. The later closing will provide an extra window of time for people to shop after work or may want to zip down later. It makes the market more convenient and can help expand its base of year-round shoppers.
Next.
Have you been inside of a Wegmans or Tops on Sunday recently? They are jammed packed with people shopping. These people could be shopping at the Broadway Market.
If you take in to consideration the influx of people who come to the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood for Sunday Mass, there is a built in customer base waiting to be tapped into. Personally, I would love to stop in the market for some baked goods, etc. on Sunday after Mass.
The Broadway Market wouldn’t have to open all day on Sundays. A short hour schedule of 9am-2pm should suffice.
As the title of this post and series suggests, EASY.
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The entire series of articles can be viewed by clicking here—>
Agreed. I totally concur with your ideas. At least try the Sunday hours before possibly extending the hours during the week. I think there would be much more interest by both vendors and customers if they were open on Sundays.
I would shop a few days a week if it were open until 7 pm.
Chris,
How come you aren’t the Broadway Market manager?
Having later hours may encourage current businesses to stay until the Broadway Market closes. I can’t tell you how many times I have stopped in the place at after work at like 4:30 in the afternoon to find half the places inside closed. That is not good business.
This has long been my biggest complaint. I would love to be able to swing by Broadway Seafood on my way home from work and pick up something to take home and cook immediately. Or I would love to grab a quick dinner before a meeting at the Terminal. I already spend a significant amount of time on the East Side and the Market’s hours don’t meet my needs. It’s impossible to draw other people into the area when the Market isn’t even open.
I’d shop more at the Broadway Market if it was open on Sundays because I’m there for mass already. I too have experienced vendors being closed before the market is closed. Bad business period.
Spot on.
I couldn’t agree with you more strongly. Yet I recall this coming up in everything I’ve heard and read about the Broadway Market since reading in the Buffalo News like a decade or more ago (when I still lived in Rochester) about struggles to revitalize the market. But still the hours remain the same — like you pointed out, just what they’ve been for as long as you can remember.
I wonder what it will take to make this change — or whether it’s destined to join “and we still don’t have a new Peace Bridge” as a popular metaphor for a community that has trouble getting out of its own way.
A good plan and the will to implement changes.