By Sarah Nicole Prickett

“What do you want to sell at my market?” demands a flustered, head-scarved Kealan Sullivan, 69 Vintage owner and entrepreneur extraordinaire. “You want to sell cupcakes? Sure. Homemade ice cream? Sure. Old records? Sure. Just not vintage clothes… because, you know, I do that already. Antique clothes? Sure.”
We don’t actually want to sell anything at Queen West Market, which opens tomorrow, June 21, in the gallery formerly known as SPIN. (The gorgeous, dramatically lit space has been sitting shamefully empty for months.) We do, however, thrill to the thought of buying cupcakes and ice cream and old records and older clothes, all in one sunlit place. Everyone loves a market, and given that St. Lawrence is practically the east end for Queen and Dovercourt types, it’s high time weekend shoppers ‘twixt park (Trinity-Bellwoods) and bridge (Dufferin) had one to call their own.
Besides, with the recent, unseasonable shittiness of Toronto weather, where better to shop than indoors? Year-round? Every Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.? Anything else we can squeeze into a rhetorical question? Oh, yes—are 35 art, fashion, craft, and food hawkers enough to satisfy both your capitalist urges and buy-local resolutions?
By the way, if you do want to sell things, QSM is still looking for vendors. Email info@queenwestmarket.com.
Photo via QueenWestMarket.com.