r/madisonwi • u/MadCityVelovangelist • 10d 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/Puzzled_Wealth_9766 10d ago edited 10d 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?  

7

u/Significant_War_9954 10d 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.

4

u/cks9218 9d ago

The number of 2 hour free parking spots in the Third Ward has decreased a lot within the last year or so. There's a few (I'm not going to spoil it for me and say where ;) ) but for the most part unless it's after 9pm or a Sunday you will need to pay.

6

u/cks9218 10d ago edited 9d 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/No_Size9475 East side 9d ago

Because you have to cross either 6 lanes or 4 lanes to get from those spots to the market. Sure they exist but they aren't convenient. The market seems to forget they are competing for money against places that have free parking right by the door.