That’s right! After being closed since the middle of March, Levenshulme Market is back. We’ll be returning on Saturday 27th June, 10-4pm.
In order to incorporate social distancing and a number of public hygiene measures, the market will be operating in a slightly different form for a little while. And that’s why we’re launching Levenshulme Market Shop & Go.
As this hopefully implies, for a little while we’ll be switching the focus of Levenshulme Market from the social to the shopping.
As well as the usual mixture of street food and arts and crafts stalls, we’ll also be beefing up the shopping staples on offer in order to give you an independent outdoor alternative to the supermarket.
So you’ll still be able to pick up your cheese, butter, eggs, fruit, veg and groceries, but instead of our usual bar we’ll be offering beverages to take home. And, as well as some world-class street food, many of our traders will be selling luxury ready meal kits for your fridge or freezer.
The market space will also be more closed off than you may be used to, with customer access being monitored and restricted in order to ensure it doesn’t get too crowded. This may mean the occasional queue, and any eating, drinking or socialising will also have to take place away from the site for the time being.
In addition, there will be a hand sanitiser station at the entry point, we’ll only be accepting contactless payments onsite and we’re encouraging customers to browse with their eyes rather than with their hands.
Obviously, we’ll be doing all we can to keep the Levy Market spirit alive and we have plans underway to help our customers come together and have fun in a safe and socially distant way this summer – keep your eyes peeled for the details.
You can see our revised list of dates when we’ll be open for the next couple of months here. The more eagle-eyed among you may spot that our Friday night markets have been cancelled for the time being and replaced with a standard Saturday market. Rest assured, once we feel certain it’s safe to begin running night markets again we’ll not only be doing just that but throwing an utterly almighty party.
All of this is a work in progress, one to which we expect to be reacting and adapting as required when changes in the official medical guidance are announced or if unforeseen factors require us to make some changes to how we operate.
But, most important of all, we’re so excited to be back! The past few months have been a dark and difficult period for everyone and not being able to run our market when it has felt like Levenshulme needed its weekly community hub more than ever has hurt like HECK. But the resilience, the solidarity and the positivity we’ve seen demonstrated by our customers and traders have kept our spirits high and we’re looking forward to finally being there for you again.
So stay tuned for all the details of the next Levenshulme Market and we’ll see you at the Shop & Go!
You can find our more about Levenshulme Market Shop & Go here.