More than 30 local vendors will be stationed at Heartwood Soundstage today, selling local produce, products and artisan goods, to kick off the venue’s first weekly farmers market.
Heartwood Soundstage’s GNV Market will take place today, and every Thursday, 4 to 7 p.m at 619 S. Main St.
Attendees will be required to wear masks and socially distance at the market, Dave Melosh, one of the owners of Heartwood Soundstage, said. Vendors will be spaced out and Heartwood will be operating at half capacity.
Radha Dainton, the 40-year-old owner of Radha’s Kitchen, said she came up with the idea of a farmers market at Heartwood a couple months ago. As a friend of Melosh, she proposed the event.
“To be supporting the community, supporting other local vendors, I'm more excited than nervous,” said Dainton.
Melosh said he is looking forward to the event and thinks Heartwood provides a great, open space for vendors and attendees.
“We have a bunch of fantastic vendors,” Melosh said. “And each week, we'll be adding more vendors.”
The farmers market will have live music weekly. Today’s event will feature Shine and The Shakers, a local new-blues rock band. This will be Heartwood’s second live show in the past seven months, Melosh said.
“Shine is an absolute star,” Melosh said. “She sings like an angel and plays guitar like Jimi Hendrix. We’re really excited to have her kick off the market.”
The lead singer, who goes by the stage name Shine, said she has performed at Heartwood Soundstage about five times.
“What we want to give people is an experience,” Shine said. “We want to bring back [to] when you just see an early blues singer and it's just him and a guitar and there's something so magical about that. We want to bring people that magic.”
Upcoming performances in future weeks include Tabajara Bello and The Divebombers.
Both Heartwood Soundstage and Radha’s Kitchen faced financial and business-related obstacles due to the pandemic, they said. A goal of the GNV Market is to support local vendors, farms, artists and musicians.
“I'm just so happy to see that Heartwood is doing the market,” Dainton said. “I'm so super happy that my idea came to life.”
The GNV Market schedule and application to become a vendor can be found here.
Heartwood Soundstage is hosting its first weekly GNV Market Oct. 1.
Michelle Holder is a second-year journalism student at UF minoring in entrepreneurship and a Metro reporter at The Alligator. She is from Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. In her free time she enjoys going to coffee shops and reading.
