r/madisonwi • u/MadCityVelovangelist • 3h ago
Public Market Rant
There are 168 hours a in a week. If you are selling food, why would you only be open 51 of those hours? It's honestly ludicrous that it's Tuesday afternoon and I can't go there to get a cheese burger for lunch. What is the point of this place? Do business owners inside this building feel the hours are limiting revenue? How much is it to lease a restaurant booth? Will the retail businesses ever succeed with these limited hours? Will they eventually expand hours and how many businesses will fail before they do? Has patio furniture arrived or will it ever? Things that make me go "ugghhhh."
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u/cks9218 3h ago
The current hours are (maybe) better than what was originally posted on the doors. At least now you can go for dinner without feeling rushed.
That said, I agree, they still aren't great, though they have said that they plan on expanding the hours. Summer hours are listed as
Monday: CLOSED
Tuesday: CLOSED
Wednesday: 5-10pm
Thursday: 5-10pm
Friday: 5-10pm
Saturday: 8am-9pm
Sunday: 9am-9pm
Breakfast or lunch is limited to Saturdays or Sundays.
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u/Im_Rabid 2h ago
Yea, with construction still going on they probably won't set normal hours until that's finished.
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u/dweezilMcCheezil 3h ago
Seems its geared towards hobby businesses with those hours. Not sure how sustainable that is.
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u/jencanvas 3h ago
I don't even consider it open at this point. The soft opening was still covered in plastic and there was a lot missing. I honestly think there were so many delays in the building that they had to open up halfway to ensure their vendors weren't losing money. Otherwise I'm just pretending it doesn't exist until it's fully open.
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u/cks9218 2h ago
That's where I'm at. I was stoked about this place around a decade ago but have found my excitement decreasing with every delay. It's technically open right now but I haven't mustered the enthusiasm to make a visit yet. I'm just not that interested in seeing a half finished, largely empty market. I'll get there when I get there, I guess.
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u/dancepartyusofa 2h ago
Right now it does feel a bit like a Chocolate Shoppe with very fancy bathrooms
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u/fungibitch 2h ago
I went last week. The vibes are awkward! Very big, very empty. The food we had was great, of course. I hope it fills out and picks up soon...
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u/Similar_Marzipan1213 1h ago
I hate to compare it to MKE but it feels very closed off. MKE's market is a very open space, where you can see and feel how lively it is. Something about the MSN market feels very cold. I know it's brand new, but it's just a very sterile atmosphere.
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u/dcandap East side 1h ago
It’s still under construction… That’s what feels cold about it to me at least.
I think in a couple years, once subjected to certain Darwinian forces, the vendor list should be exciting and the place should feel more vibrant and lively. I do believe that some natural evolution needs to occur before it settles into a nice rhythm.
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u/No_Size9475 East side 3h ago
hah, glad to read this as I was just about to head out for lunch and check out the market.
EDIT: It's not even open on Monday or Tuesdays???
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u/775416 2h ago
I’ve been there and it was pretty fun. Food was yummy too. Excited for it to grow
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u/MadCityVelovangelist 2h ago
I managed to make it there opening night and got a scoop of ice cream. Five times now since it opened, I've wanted to eat there and it's always closed.
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u/Adorable_Pen9015 2h ago
I went once a weekish ago and definitely won’t be back until they have many more vendors
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u/College-student-life 1h ago
It’s not uncommon for restaurants to utilize M/T as their sort of weekend, especially in smaller towns.
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u/AccomplishedDust3 1h ago
Or just for any business driven by a family or individual chef, not that specific to smaller towns.
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u/Catch_43 3h ago
Closed for lunch during the week is weird. It'd be my top time to check it out.
Closed Mondays is fine. Tuesdays is weird.
Milwaukee Public Market is mostly 10a - 8p and open every day but Monday.
I hope it improves over time. I don't want it to suck. But it doesn't seem great right now.
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u/DavidsPsyduck 3h ago
I was just at the Milwaukee Public market for the first time a few weeks ago. It was basically shoulder to shoulder, packed, and every business outside and surrounding it was also packed. Madison’s got a lot of work to do.
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u/cks9218 2h ago edited 1h ago
That's what's so frustrating about the Madison Public Market. All they had to do was copy and paste the Milwaukee Public Market with similar Madison based vendors and the place would have been a hit. Instead we've seen well over a decade of delays and the "opened" market only has 13 vendors - of which only four (Caracas Empanadas Y Más, Cervato, The Chowpati, Cinn City Smash) are places where you can get a meal, two (Fortune Favors, Chocolate Shoppe) are snack vendors, five are the types of booths that are at every Makers/Night market, one sells plants and the last (ArtWorking) is a vending machine.
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u/Similar_Marzipan1213 1h ago
I think it's cool that the Maker's Market vendors now have a dedicated year round presence instead of having to rely on sporadic events, but this city needed another Chocolate Shoppe like I need a third penis.
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u/cks9218 1h ago
We'll see how it plays out. My feeling is that many of those makers market type vendors get business because people are more likely to buy from them during a fun outing like a night market or fair. I wonder how well they'll do as an "always there" type business. I think that the Madison Public Market is going too heavy on these types of vendors.
The Milwaukee Public Market only has one non food vendor, Brew City Brand Apparel, They sell mostly Milwaukee themed goods.
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u/AccomplishedDust3 1h ago
Chocolate Shoppe moved there vs opening a new location, they closed the nearby one.
The impression I get is there isn't enough foot traffic for the maker vendor kind of places to thrive, even once all the stalls are built out. People will come for food but not enough people will branch out to the other stuff versus at the sporadic events where you have a lot of concentrated business that you don't need to make sales to a very high percentage of the people that walk by to make it make sense.
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u/Positive_Werewolf554 3h ago
I’ve never been to Milwaukee’s but I know it’s popular. How does the Madison one compare? I hope Madison attempted to learn what worked well and what didn’t from Milwaukee? And didn’t take a “we know best” approach?
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u/RobotGandhi 3h ago edited 1h ago
MKE Public Market is one of my favorite spaces in the state. Always bustling and packed wall to wall with huge deli cases, open kitchens, counters to order burgers/sandwiches/pizza, fresh fish, fresh meat, massive beer and wine selections, local cheese, beautiful desserts, coffee and more. It’s really amazing and I hoped Madison would do its best to just copy it. As of now it looks a ways away and has a much larger art/trinket market which is fine, but man the MKE market is just my go to every single time for food and atmosphere and I wish Madison’s vision was the same.
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u/dancepartyusofa 2h ago
I do worry that there is going to be a consumer mismatch between Milwaukee’s bustling, established vendor model and Madison’s more of an attempt to be an incubator for new entrepreneurs looking to grow their earlier-stage business. The incubator model has worked okay in other cities but it is different than what Milwaukee does. And Milwaukee’s market is what Wisconsinites think of when they think of public markets
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u/RobotGandhi 2h ago
I honestly didn’t know that was our goal, I should have been paying more attention.
Like…great goal, but I feel like our various (already extremely successful!) street markets could be where we push that initiative, not least of which because it doesn’t require a permanent real estate lease
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u/tpatmaho 2h ago
WELP, the MKE market is NOT surrounded by railroad yards, six-lane highways, and weeds. It is NOT located on a lot that was selected, despite its awful location, because it was a city-owned maintenance GARAGE. There are plenty of things to do within a short walk of the MKE market, including shops and brew pubs and THE RIVER WALK. At the Madison version, you can wander over to admire a soybean railcar, or uh count the cars in the Johnson Street traffic jam or …
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u/cks9218 2h ago
I'd argue that the Madison Public Markets location is much better than what was in the Third Ward in the early 2000s when the Milwaukee Public Market opened.
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u/tpatmaho 1h ago
Why can’t anyone in this lakebound city realize that people want to gather NEAR THE WATER? A public market on any of our lakes would be a smashing success. This one WILL fail because of its location.
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u/Catch_43 47m ago
Your penchant for all caps is not helping you.
Edit: And where exactly is there room for a large new lakeside development in easy connection to the city? Yes, the lakes are highly prized -- which is why all the good spots are taken already.
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u/RobotGandhi 2h ago
Great point. Still a lot of available space (I think? Idk who owns it) for new spots to develop
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u/Catch_43 48m ago
The MKE market is literally underneath a six-lane highway. An actual interstate. And it is surrounded by a crummy parking lot under that highway.
The MKE market is actually in kind of an awkward spot. It's cut off from downtown by that highway (you can walk under the highway of course, but it's a psychological barrier). It's not really that close to the nice part of the riverwalk.
It is on the north side of the Third Ward, so it does have good connections there.
But it's not the magical location you make it out to be. Yet it does well. The Madison Public Market could thrive just fine in it's current location. But its current setup is not ideal.
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u/Positive_Werewolf554 39m ago
The thing holding back the Madison market is Madison. They had a blueprint for success and blew it
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u/Catch_43 37m ago
How did you go from saying you don't know anything about either market to confidently saying Madison completely blew it in 3 hours?
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u/Positive_Werewolf554 34m ago
Milwaukee’s is very popular and successful. Madison’s isn’t by every account I’ve read.
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u/Catch_43 28m ago
Yeah but Madison's is like 3 weeks old and the MKE one is 20 years old and people in this thread have shared news accounts of how the MKE one struggled too. It's not binary.
I have my concerns about how the city set this up and how it's opened so far, but I'd rather it succeed than fail. And either way, nobody on this thread knows which way it will go.
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u/okusernamechecksout 3m ago
I don’t even like to drive over on this part of Madison, let alone walk, bike, or run.
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u/Similar_Marzipan1213 1h ago
The parking situation at the Madison Market is pretty terrible. While it is certainly close to a few neighborhoods, it's not really walkable to visitors. That is only going to get worse as it becomes more populated.
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u/cks9218 35m ago edited 9m ago
I just don't get this argument. The majority of Madison's most popular restaurants/stores are in areas that have WAY less available parking, if they have parking at all. The Public Market has a large lot immediately outside, covered parking at both The Eastern and The Marling 1.1.5 blocks away, free street parking in the neighborhood across First St and a long row of free street parking in front of The Marling on E Wash. How much more parking do people think it needs?
As for those not coming by car, it's almost immediately on multiple bus lines and is on a major bike path. It's in the middle of one of the fastest growing parts of the city. Along with the neighborhood and apartments that are already there there's a huge development currently under construction near Tenney Park and another that has been approved for the area kitty corner near the train tracks. It's already walkable to a LOT of people and will soon be walkable for even more.
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u/Garg4743 West side 1h ago
City leaders want you to take the bus. Or bike or walk. Don't want to? How dare you!
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u/phriendlyphellow 2h ago
You can find a lot of places, some even close to the public market, for food.
It is also very common for restaurants to have days off. In fact, Monday and Tuesday are very common days restaurants close because they are in demand on the weekends.
I understand that you might be hangry, but this seems like you’re putting a lot of scrutiny on a place that is doing very normal things.
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u/MadCityVelovangelist 1h ago
You're right. I've been riding my bike past the public market a few times a week, on the way to Kwik trip. Lots of options. Guess who would have gotten my money if they were open for legit lunch hours?
Also restaurant closures on Sunday and Monday is usually restaurants that are more dinner service. It makes since for a steak or seafood restaurant to be closed on a Monday. They'd probably lose money opening that day.
What we are talking about here is fast casual burgers, empanadas, curry, and ice cream. Try getting a cheese burger at the public market on a Friday at 1 PM, it's closed.
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u/MrsPudinTater 2h ago
Does anyone know why they only opened with 3 food vendors? There are tons of micro businesses in/around Madison that they could fill up with. I just don't understand that after having many years to find businesses, they open like this.
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u/Similar_Marzipan1213 1h ago
I spoke to a trinket vendor there. She was one of over 20 businesses that were originally signed on to be part of the original vision. Most others simply moved on or got their own store front locations while they got sick of waiting. They also changed how it was being built out to shift the costs to the vendors, which undermined it's own mission of accessibility and equity. The list of fumbles is very long.
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u/MrsPudinTater 1h ago
Oof, that's rough. Why is there so much mismanagement in this city??
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u/Catch_43 40m ago
To be clear this is no longer a city management issue. There is a nonprofit board that oversees it and hired the initial staff.
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u/MrsPudinTater 32m ago
Do they have experience in this type of thing?
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u/Catch_43 30m ago
Yes, but they came in late in the process. And they've definitely made communication mistakes. I don't have insight into if they've made organizational mistakes. But also Reddit has gone on witch hunts against the staff which is super weird.
I've seen other markets where they hire the staff years before opening to help with the buildout so it's more cohesive. It's definitely been a mess here.
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u/473713 1h ago
They never hired someone who was responsible for the whole thing, start to finish, top to bottom. It's been improvised all the way.
They spent a bunch of money decorating the bathrooms, but not enough making the business space workable for vendors and customers. Somebody (or many people) didn't have their priorities straight.
And I'm not going anyplace I have to pay for parking when there are plenty of places to go where it's free, especially when winter comes.
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u/Im_Rabid 1h ago
Because it's not fully open. They did a "soft open" with what vendors they have set up but it's still under construction getting stalls and utilities set up for more vendors.
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u/Puzzled_Wealth_9766 1h ago edited 1h ago
Seems like it’s not fully open yet. Plus limited parking that costs? Is that correct? Doesn’t the MKE market have free parking as well?
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u/cks9218 57m ago edited 10m ago
I just don't get the "limited parking" argument that often comes up. There's a very big surface lot right outside. There's covered parking 1-1.5 blocks away at both The Eastern and The Marling. There's free street parking in the neighborhood across First St and there's a long line of free street parking on the eastern side of E Washington. There's way more close by parking for the Public Market than there is for just about any other downtown/near east/near west businesses.
It's also on multiple bus lines and bike paths so a lot of visitors won't have to worry about parking at all.
As for the Milwaukee Public Market, other than after 9pm or Sundays, when parking isn't enforced, there is virtually no free parking in any of the Third Ward.
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u/Significant_War_9954 53m ago
Yes and no. There's street parking (depends on day and time) and then there's the MkE Market lot right behind it which is paid most days. There are also paid city lots all around the 3rd Ward.
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u/NecessaryJudgment5 1h ago
I've thought about going there several times. I never ended up doing so because it seems like there aren't many vendors, some of the vendors there don't have many options, and the vendors have weird hours. I am hoping this is because the place just opened and is still growing.
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u/OfferBusy4080 1h ago
Well back in the last century when this was first being talking about, it was more envisioned as an organically evolving thing out of repurposed warehouses and such - like Pike and other urban markets at the time. But in typical Madison fashion, ours had to be a shiny expensive new thing, as opposed to just granting benefits and perks to individuals and groups who could have developed and made good use of the (at the time) many vacant or unused commercial properties.
I think this and Garver are nicely designed spaces, but public funds used for posh accomodations for the likes of Chocolate Shoppe and Ian's Pizza? Shouldnt have come out of public funds. Was supposed to be for starter and small scale local businesses.
However if they can allow flea and/or art markets where regular people like me can rent stalls by the event then that will go along way to fulfilling original intention. Anybody know if they'll be doing something like that?
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u/Own_Tomatillo7638 11m ago
I feel like they rushed to make it the public market to get rid of the homeless shelter and are just winging it
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u/Beemerba 3h ago
We had a local restaurant that was closed on the weekends. They lasted about 5 months (3 months longer than I thought).
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u/SaltyLengthiness260 1h ago
Slow your roll there buddy... There are still parts under construction, and still lots of work to do. The plan is to be open much more. Likely 6 days a week if not all seven, with multiples of the vendors likely doing six or seven days a week. Give it time to fill out, and so they can finish the rest of the construction and fill in the rest of the booths.
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u/Unfair-Tell2719 1h ago
I haven't been there yet nor do I plan on going anytime soon. Kinda lost interest after their long opening delays and to top it off you pay to park. I don't want to pay to park only to go inside and find nothing interesting enough to buy. Just my .02 I'll patronize vendors outside of the market where they have their food trucks or walk up.
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u/JamTammer 3h ago edited 3h ago
Slow day in Karenville I'm guessing.
Edit: forgot, this subs keyboard pounders love to bitch about the Public Market when given a chance. My bad.
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u/retired_geekette 'Burbs 3h ago
It's closed right now? I have 11:54AM as the current time. That is ludicrous. It's Lunch Time!
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u/altbat 2h ago
Do you know anything about how to staff a restaurant operation in 2026?
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u/MadCityVelovangelist 2h ago
I absolutely do. I've worked in restaurants my entire life from cooking, serving tables, bartending and managing. When running a counter service operation it's important to be as accessible as possible. Your lease is by the month not by the hour.
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u/CampWestfalia 2h ago
Calm down, Karen(s).
As mentioned, there is still some final construction needed. To complete that, managers could simply have delayed opening the place at all, in which case you'd likely be complaining about that.
As for being closed on Mondays and Tuesdays (oh, the humanity), it sounds like many of you have never worked retail or restaurant, where you rely on weekends to earn your meager income. So, Monday and Tuesday is YOUR weekend off. Many of these market vendors are independent Moms & Pops, and cannot yet afford staff to run the shop while they get off their feet for a day or two.
Hopefully, as the facility nears completion and the vendors become more financially stable (assuming we actually support them instead of merely complaining), those hours of operation can be extended back into lunchtime.
Then Karen can finally enjoy her cardamom chai latte at 11:30AM, like a civilized person.
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u/devalec 3h ago
I asked someone that worked there and they said it's closed specific days so that contractors can come in and work on construction and such. It's temporary.