“Man, it was hot. It was dusty. It was too windy. It was too rainy. There were too many crafts. There were too many junk dealers. The music is too loud.”
This is just some of the feedback given to founder and owner Martin Casas after the St. Louis Swap Meet’s launch in 2015. Held in the lot of the Lemp Brewery, the Meet brings in local vendors selling crafts, antiques, food, and other flea-market-type wares. Now ready to kick off its second year this Sunday, April 24, Casas feels pretty strongly that things will be different this year.
“A lot of the problems we had was that it was new and no one knew what to expect—from the customers, to the vendors, to the people running the thing,” he says. “The first year is about frequency and stability. The second year is about fixing the mistakes of the first year.”
Casas developed the idea for the Swap Meet after years of working in politics—an industry he found he wasn’t much inspired by anymore. His focus shifted to small businesses, incubators, and entrepreneurs who he saw “bringing new life to this city.” Having grown up in Orange County around outdoor markets of this kind, he had a base for what he envisioned and traveled the country to research more. Casas notes that every major city in Europe has vibrant street markets that have a lot to offer their communities.
“St. Louis has so many beautiful streets and so many entrepreneurs that I don’t see why we can't do the same here.“
Casas began the Meet in an effort to for businesses to test out their audience—to see who wants their products then hopefully garner a customer base then make enough sales to expand and bring back the now-forgotten economy of “mom and pop shops.”
In gearing up for this second season, Casas got word that the designated location at the Lemp Brewery would be undergoing major construction and would have to move the Meet elsewhere. But Casas wanted to stay in the Cherokee neighborhood, so he worked with the businesses (who generally weren’t too enthusiastic about the weekly event last year) to put in place a plan for the Swap Meet to move to Cherokee Street proper, setting up booths twice monthly in front of the brick-and-mortar shops.
“With the new layout, the shops are ingrained into the fabric of the Swap Meet—it's basically one and the same. Before shoppers would come to the Lemp Brewery and hopefully visit Cherokee after. This year they have to visit the shops because it's on the same street.”
In addition to this change, Casas is also planning for extensions of the Meet to open at the Wellston Loop on Martin Luther King Drive, the Arch Riverfront (both set to open in July), and one more location still in the works.
“Our goal this year is to really build out the locations at which our vendors can sell,” says Casas. “We want to offer vendors more opportunities to sell and bring in different customers they can put their products in front of.
“I don't think there is anything like what we offer. I want to be the testing ground for new businesses.”
The Cherokee Swap Meet will be held on the first and last Sundays of each month, starting April 24th and continuing into November. The Riverfront Swap Meet will be held during the third Saturday and Sunday of each month: July 16-17, August 20-21, September 17-18, October 15-16. The Wellston Market is tentatively scheduled to open in July. For more info, go to stlswapmeet.com.
