Andrew Gaess and his wife, Kelly, have helped revive the Ambler Farmers Market.
If you’ve attended the Ambler Farmers Market over the last few years, you may have noticed there hasn't been as many vendors as there used to be.
What was once a thriving gathering place filled with fresh produce, handmade goods, and cheerful conversations has felt a little quieter of late.
But thanks to one local couple, the once thriving Ambler Farmers Market in the heart of the community will be revived, beginning on May 17.
“My wife and I, our official roles are co-directors of the market,” said Andrew Gaess.
Gaess and his wife, Kelly, have partnered with the Borough of Ambler to revive the Ambler Farmers Market for the 2025 season.
"We're welcoming back previous vendors and a few new faces and we will be located in the usual spot by La Provence on Butler Pike," Gaess said.
“The market, at one point, had been started by a group of local volunteers and really turned into quite the thriving market,” said Gaess. “They were really filling up that parking lot, they had kid's activities, they had all kinds of good stuff.”
But over the last few years, some of the vendors have disappeared and the family-friendly feel has been lacking. The couple has been working with Farm to City, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting urban communities with local farmers and food artisans through producer-only farmers' markets, who has been running the Ambler Farmers Market for the last few years. However, organizers are hoping to attract more vendors to revitalize the community.
“They ended up ended up in a spot of not having enough vendors, which meant not enough people came, which meant that even fewer people were coming,” said Gaess. “My wife and I had been regulars at the market for the past couple of years, and just kind of watched this happen.”
Disappointed in what the market had turned into, Gaess decided to do something about it to help his community.
“The best course of action was to have locals take the market back over again and so that's what my wife and I have done,” said Gaess. “We've decided to settle on an approach of, 'Build it and they will come', so our big push has been get lots of good vendors.”
With an invigorated push to revive the market, the vendors have come back. As of the publish date, the following vendors have committed to the Ambler Farmers Market:
Over the course of the last year, the couple has traveled to other area farmer’s market to get a good idea of what makes them successful.
“We're trying to get back to what was an excellent market,” Gaess said. “From all accounts, the market that was started years ago was actually one of the best farmers' markets in Montgomery County. So, we're really trying to get back to that.”
According to Gaess, these vendors will be instrumental in bringing customers back, which will go a long way to making these weekend events successful, and “hopefully we have something sustainable,” he said.
Gaess said there are around 20 vendors confirmed so far, with at least 12 vendors participating on a weekly basis.
In his day job, Gaess does commercialization work for medical devices and his wife was a management consultant before ending up at a start-up company.
“But we kind of felt like we probably have a lot of good skills to try to bring to this, just on a volunteer basis, to help the people who are already doing it,” Gaess said.
“I'm starting to get really excited because I'm putting all this work in and now we have all these vendors and I see a lot of interest from the community, I'm starting to really get excited," Gaess said. "And I'm starting to get excited for those Saturday's."
The couple has lived in the Ambler area for the last five years.
The market will run from May 17 until the end of October, and then there will be a pop-up for Thanksgiving, and Christmas, depending on the level of interest.
“Our goal is for people to be able to come there and do a substantial chunk of their grocery shopping,” Gaess said.
