Pizazz is downtown Great Falls will host "Fresh On Fourth" on Saturdays to help with the demand for fresh local produce.
They are blocking off 4th Street from Central Avenue to the alley to make room for fresh produce and food sales. The event is set to be held every Saturday from 8 a.m. until noon until August.
Veronica Ronnau, owner of Pizazz, said she saw a need and wanted to help: "There was a definite gap, there was a different feeling downtown without the Farmers Market. We love the Farmers Market. It adds a nice, you know, family time to stroll and brings a lot of traffic downtown, which as retailers we love. And we saw people were saying, 'Where's the produce, where's our things that we love about the Farmers market?' So we thought maybe we could fill that gap by doing a fresh market on Saturdays until the Farmers Market is up and running and doing their thing again, we just wanted to fill that."
She also said, "I know a lot of the producers, and they too needed a venue to move some produce...you don't want them sitting on produce when they're used to moving stuff every Saturday, so we wanted to help them, and we also wanted to help downtown retailers have a place...people milling around downtown and enjoying walking, strolling on a Saturday morning."
Ronnau said if the Farmers Market gets back up and running, she will stop hosting the Fresh On Fourth event.
The Farmers Market has been put on hold until "phase three" is implemented; click here for details.
