Greensburg’s Night Market launched its sixth season of open pit mining and live music Thursday night as the city’s civic and business leaders looked forward to the monthly event spotlighting the downtown retail area. .
Mayor Rob Bell said he was surprised by the growth of events on several blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue, which is temporarily closed to car traffic.
“We went from one block to four blocks,” Bell said. “It just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
“It brings a lot of people into downtown and it brings a lot of attention to downtown merchants. That’s the ultimate goal. It’s to promote small business.”
“It’s always great to bring people downtown and show them what Greensburg has to offer,” said Amy Beeley, president of the Greensburg Business Professionals Association. “We’ve grown from barely filling a block to thousands of people with bands on every street corner.”
Thursday’s market featured more than 150 food, beverage, arts and craft vendors, along with food trucks and musicians.
Dozens of visitors lined up when the market opened at 5:30 p.m., and an event booth handed out 500 free tote bags for the start of the April-December season.
Event owner Jessica Hickey added a shuttle service from the town’s Nicely Elementary School to give people special rates on nearby parking during the market.
For Greensburg resident and herbalist Mary DePalma, the market is convenient and valuable. This is where she can connect with existing and potential customers for her Essence Botanical business.
While promoting her services and selling natural soaps and herbal body products in other select markets, she said she has attended at least half of Greensburg’s events since 2020.
“This is one of my favorite markets because the attendance is great,” DePalma said. “It’s very lively. There’s always something interesting and unique.
“I love seeing Greensburg become a vibrant place where people want to go and shop.”
For the past five years, a regular vendor at the Greensburg market has been West Newton-based Crooked Creek Distillery, which sells its spirits simultaneously at its Irwin brick-and-mortar store as well as at multiple events.
“A good portion of our customers are repeat customers,” said Tracy Marsick, who was helping staff the distillery’s booth Thursday. “A lot of people come to this event.”
Many of them ordered one of the distillery’s two most popular drinks: Chocolate Coffee Vodka and Blackberry Lavender Lemonade Moonshine.
“Our sales are good unless we have bad weather,” Marsick said.
Greensburg merchants with permanent stores in the market area benefit from increased foot traffic during the event.
“It’s always worth staying open for extra hours,” said Mary Willms, whose stuffed animals and other products at Penelope’s Boutique have brought in new customers.
“New people come to town and see stores they didn’t know were here,” she says.
Some market vendors have graduated from storefront operations in Greensburg.
Wicks and Wax Studio will continue to offer finished candles at its Pennsylvania Avenue booth after opening on nearby Main Street in August 2022, where patrons can create their own candles.
“We’ve been coming to the night market every night since April 2022,” said Aaron Thompson, whose wife Hannah runs a candle business. “It’s been going on ever since and we’ve been doing good business.”
At the market, “we have the opportunity to connect face-to-face with people and explain what we do,” he said.
Samantha DeStefano, owner of Rustic Smoked Candle Co. in Greensburg, started selling her wax creations at the Greensburg Night Market in 2021.
“This was a really great way for me to build a business,” she said. “It exposes you to a lot of people. When you build trust with people, they like your product and keep coming back.”
As a result, when she opened her store on Second Street, just off Pennsylvania Avenue, on March 23, “we had lines wrapping around the building,” she said.
DeStefano also operates an online store, but Greensburg was the ideal physical location, she said.
“I really liked how they were starting to build out the downtown area,” she said. “I knew there would be a lot of people at the Knight Market, and many of my customers are in Westmoreland County.”
For Greensburg merchants, it makes sense to make shopping downtown more convenient and comfortable.
To that end, the business group plans to set up tents at future Night Market events where mothers can nurse and soothe their babies, Beeley said.
“We are very excited about the future of Greensburg,” Bealey said.
Jeff Himler is a TribLive reporter covering the Greater Latrobe, Ligonier Valley, Mount Pleasant Area, and Derry Area school districts and communities. He also reports on traffic issues. A journalist for over 30 years, he loves digging deep into local history. Contact him at jhimler@triblive.com.
