9 minute read
BUENA MARKET
WORDS Tara Crutchfield PHOTOGRAPH Amy Sexson
As she looked to start a brick-and-mortar market featuring products by local vendors, Stephanie Gregg’s plans took a turn. Last year, many of us learned to be flexible under pressure and adapt in the face of uncertainty. How Buena Market evolved wasn’t expected, but it was what Gregg needed in a way – fostering a community connection, not only for herself but also makers, chefs, and artists around Lakeland.
Stephanie and her husband Steven moved to Lakeland from Austin, Texas, three years ago. Steven grew up here, his family is here, and the couple visited Lakeland periodically over their time together. Though it was different from the big city she was used to, Stephanie welcomed the move. In Austin, she worked in urban real estate sales and management, immersing herself in the community. “I was really engaged in the downtown scene – food culture and lifestyle. Being in real estate, I felt more than I was a realtor; I was a tour guide, showing people what their life could look like if they lived there,” she said. “It was important to me to be involved in the community.”
When the Greggs moved to Polk County, Stephanie wanted to start a business of her own. She began educating herself, found advisors, and joined Catapult. “It ended up being really good for me. […] It was a good opportunity to meet people that were interested in my ideas and wanted to help me develop them.”
She spent over a year writing a business plan and narrowing in on a concrete concept, deciding that it would take the form of a brick-and-mortar store. Knowing she wanted it to involve food and beverage, Stephanie saw a gap in the local market. She wanted a brick-and-mortar market, offering specialty goods from makers around the community all in one place.
PORCH POP-UP TURNED POPULAR MARKET
As she neared the time to find a space and go after funding to make her idea happen, the pandemic swept through and ‘deconstructed’ it entirely. Stephanie had a few part-time jobs that she couldn’t work anymore and racked her brain for how to make this work. She met Drew Williams of 16.92 Coffee Matcha Bar. He was a connoisseur of coffee enthusiastic about his trade, and coffee was something she wanted to be a part of the eventual business.
Stephanie invited Williams and a group of her most creative friends to set up shop on her porch for a pop-up market last July. She put the word out to friends and the growing following she had for Buena Market online, letting them know about the outdoor, socially distant, mask-required event. It was her birthday weekend, and Stephanie was thrilled to have some 40 friends and strangers come through the market.
A few pop-ups later, Buena Market had outgrown Stephanie’s front porch. She reached out to community business owners to use their space. Before the pandemic and her pop-ups, Stephanie dug into the community as she’d done in Austin – meeting other business owners, creatives, and community leaders. She appreciated that Lakeland was of the size that she could enjoy a restaurant, want to meet and talk with the owners, and make that happen. She wanted to build those relationships because, “I was a customer, I was a fan, I was excited to try new things and see what was out there. A lot of those connections happened organically.” When it came time to ask if they could use space, places like Cob & Pen and Red Door welcomed Buena Market.
After the first few markets, with her husband’s help and a core group of creative friends, Gregg “had a growing roster of other small businesses” in which she was interested. These included vendors who had attended a night market she hosted with the Lakeland Women’s Collective in early 2020. She began searching for other vendors to curate the market’s offerings.
“I value the creative energy that’s here,” said Gregg. “I feel like not everybody gets a fair chance. Obviously, there are so many issues that affect us, whether that be race or gender, or orientation. […] I wanted to create something that looked different than what I’d seen around me. […] Coming from a place like Austin, I got to see such a diverse community and be part of it. […] I wanted to build that here.”
Buena Market has become a collective of vendors offering locally-made food and drink, art, jewelry, poetry, decor, and more. Media collaborative, werlostboys (werlostboys.com) works as Buena’s photo and video team, capturing the market’s magic. Additionally, Gregg and her collaborators have begun hosting a series of dinners. Gregg teamed up with Gabriella Vigoreaux of Vicky G’s in October 2019 for a pop-up dinner. “We put together this beautiful dinner party in our friend’s backyard,” she said. Around 25 guests turned up for a beautiful evening of food and community.
Gregg hosted a dinner at their holiday market last year with Vicky G’s and Casita Verde. The group had such a blast they wanted to continue doing them. “I think we’re going to do a monthly pop-up dinner,” she said. “I love the pop-up dinners because it gives them an opportunity to flex those chef muscles and get creative and work together.” The dinners are held in much the same way the markets are, says Gregg, popping up in spaces around town with different themes. Buena Market is currently held twice a month and the dinners once a month. Information about each market and tickets for the dinners are available on their website and social media.
HONORING HER GRANDMOTHERS
This sentiment of creating space and lifting others is almost hardwired into Stephanie Gregg. She is a purveyor of community because her grandmothers were before her. The title ‘Buena’ is a combination of the names she used to refer to her maternal and paternal grandmothers – Abuela, her dad’s mother, Juliana
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Gamboa Bernal and Nana, her mom’s mother, Emma Morales Montez. Both women have since passed, but not before they could leave seismic impressions in their communities.
“They were really engaged in their community – they were very beloved in their communities. I didn’t realize that so much growing up until after they passed,” said Stephanie. At her Abuela’s funeral in a small west Texas town, surrounded by ranches and dirt roads, a community spilled into a church to celebrate the matriarch. “It was packed to the brim with people that I didn’t know,” she said. Many were from her large family, others from the community. “I remember so many people being devastated that we lost her and so excited to celebrate her life.”
It was not the vanity of being so beloved that appealed to Gregg but rather the impact her grandmothers had on others. “She fed them. She poured into their lives. They didn’t have much, but she gave what she could.”
Her Nana, too, always volunteered and gave back. “It was important to her to be part of her community in a real way,” said Gregg. “I grew up appreciating that.” Even throughout her childhood, Stephanie would take her grandmothers’ lead and jump at the opportunity to volunteer during her summers. “It became important to me to honor them and carry on that legacy of doing what you can to uplift your community,” she said.
PEELING BACK THE LAYERS
“It’s been such a hard year. [...] My husband and I both made a lot of sacrifices, and the things that just got taken away from us because of COVID – the comforts of a life we once knew are no longer there. For both of us, this has been something to have an opportunity to focus on. […] It’s something that really matters,” she said. “I think COVID took away so much of the meaningless distractions that a lot of us were probably caught up in, and I feel like it peeled back layers that needed to be peeled back. Not just COVID, but everything socially that’s happened over the past year.” The pop-up markets allowed Gregg the chance to dive into what it is she wanted. “Even though it was really sad for me to put the brick-and-mortar plans on the back burner, I’m still fulfilling what I wanted to fulfill with that business. The whole purpose of that was to find people in the community that were making cool things, and that deserved an audience, deserved support, deserved a way to sustain themselves – I’m still getting an opportunity to do that.”
She hopes it has provided the same sense of connectedness for Buena Market’s vendors. Many of them had their customers taken away, their means of making a living swept out from under them last year. Gregg hopes the market is an encouraging force, a way to let these creative souls know people still care about the products they make and pour themselves into. “I hope it’s given them a way forward,” she said.
She hopes to one day provide more ‘supportive resources’ for her vendors – whether that be the chance to invest in their business, or help with their branding or website. Gregg looks to build a network of advisors and develop workshops for the vendors to help them in their journey for growth. “I would love to collaborate with other businesses and find ways to support other businesses in the community,” she added. “That’s part of the beauty of it. If you give us your space to work with, we hope to bring you some new customers.”
A Buena brick-and-mortar isn’t out of the question, only ‘on the back burner’ for now. Open to change, Gregg said her original idea might develop differently than she thought, and “I’m open to that,” she said.
Stephanie Gregg wants Buena Market to be an accessible avenue for people. “Business endeavors aren’t as accessible for everyone, and they should be. I think if we have a good idea and a good plan, nothing should get in the way,” she said. “I’m hoping to remove some of those barriers even if it just means empowering other people.”
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