Growing Greensburg Night Market boosts foot traffic, profile for downtown retail district

Greensburg’s Night Market kicked off its sixth season of vendor browsing and live music Thursday evening, as the city’s civic and business leaders looked forward to the spotlight the monthly event shines on the downtown retail area.

Mayor Robb Bell said he’s been amazed by the event’s growth along several blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue, which are temporarily closed to motorists.

“It’s gone from one block to four blocks,” Bell said. “It keeps getting bigger and bigger.

“It brings a lot of people downtown, and it brings a lot of attention to our downtown merchants. That’s the ultimate goal: to promote our small businesses.”

“It’s great anytime you can bring people downtown to show them what Greensburg has to offer,” said Amy Beeghly, president of the Greensburg Business and Professional Association. “It’s grown from barely filling one block to having bands on every corner and thousands and thousands of people coming.”

In addition to food trucks and performing musicians, Thursday’s market featured more than 150 other food, beverage, art and craft vendors.

Dozens of visitors were lined up awaiting the market’s 5:30 p.m. opening, when 500 free tote bags were handed out at the event booth for the opening of the April-through-December season.

With a premium on nearby parking during the markets, event owner Jessica Hickey has added a shuttle service from the town’s Nicely Elementary School.

The market is a convenient and worthwhile location for Greensburg resident and herbalist Mary DePalma. It’s a venue where she can connect with existing and potential clients for her Essence Botanicals business.

While she promotes her services and sells natural soaps and herbal body products at other select markets, she said she has participated in at least half of the Greensburg event’s dates since 2020.

“Due to the wonderful turnout, this is one of my favorite markets,” DePalma said. “It’s so vibrant. There are always a lot of interesting and unique things.

“I love to see Greensburg be a happening place where people want to go and shop.”

A regular vendor at the Greensburg market for the past five years is West Newton-based Crooked Creek Distillery, which sells spirits simultaneously at multiple events as well as at a bricks-and-mortar store in Irwin.

“A good portion of our customers are repeat customers,” said Tracy Marschik, who was helping to staff the distillery’s booth on Thursday. “A lot of people come to this event for us.”

Many of them were ordering one of the distillery’s two most popular beverages — chocolate coffee vodka and blackberry lavender lemonade moonshine.

“Unless it’s poor weather, we have excellent sales,” said Marschik.

Greensburg merchants with permanent shops located in the market area have benefited from increased foot traffic during the events.

“To stay open for the extra hours, it’s always worth it,” said Mary Wilmes, who has found new customers for the line of plush toys and other merchandise she offers at her Penelope’s boutique.

“New people come into town and see stores they wouldn’t know are here,” she said.

Some market vendors have graduated to operating Greensburg storefronts.

Wicks and Wax Studio has continued to offer finished candles at a Pennsylvania Avenue booth after the August 2022 opening of its location nearby on Main Street, where patrons can create their own candles.

“We’ve come to every Night Market since April of 2022,” said Aaron Thompson, whose wife, Hannah, owns the candle business. “It’s just continued on since, and we do good business.”

At the market, he said, “We have an opportunity to connect with people face to face and explain what we do.”

Samantha DeStefano, owner of Greensburg’s Rustic Smoke Candle Co., started selling her wax creations at the Greensburg Night Market in 2021.

“It was a really great way for me to build my business,” she said. “It exposes you to a lot of people. You build trust with people and they like your product, and then they keep coming back.”

As a result, when she opened her storefront March 23 on Second Street, just steps away from Pennsylvania Avenue, she said, “We had a line wrapped around the building.”

While DeStefano also has an online store, Greensburg was the ideal place for a physical location, she said.

“I really liked how they were starting to build up the downtown area,” she said. “I knew there would be a lot of foot traffic with the Night Market, and a lot of my clientele is in Westmoreland County.”

It makes sense for Greensburg merchants to make shopping downtown more convenient and comfortable.

To that end, Beeghly said, the business group is planning to set up a tent at future Night Market events where mothers can nurse and calm their babies.

“We’re very excited for the future of Greensburg,” Beeghly said.