Coming soon: Soda City Market sets date for return to downtown Columbia
Soda City Market is set to return to downtown Columbia before the month is out.
In a post to its Facebook page on Thursday night, the hugely popular market announced it will reopen on June 27, more than three months after it shut down indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Last month, market founder and CEO Emile DeFelice told WLTX that he hoped to bring back the weekly gathering by mid-June, with health and safety protocols potentially in place.
In its Facebook post, the market’s organizers promised that “your safety is our number one priority. We will release more details closer to time on how Soda City will operate to best protect public health.”
The market, founded in 2005, has become a favorite Saturday morning activity for many residents — the market’s website claims up to 5,000 visitors on a typical Saturday, with an average of 150 vendors lining Main Street in the heart of downtown Columbia.
Large gatherings, however, have been put almost entirely on hold across the state and the entire country because of COVID-19. Most recently, the annual Rosewood Crawfish Festival, scheduled to take place at the State Fairgrounds, was canceled. Back in March, Columbia’s annual St. Patrick’s Day festival in Five Points was canceled as well.
How other regular large gatherings, like South Carolina football games, will proceed in the era of COVID-19 is still to be determined.
At the same time, South Carolina has reopened much of its economy, including tourist attractions, on or before Memorial Day, though there are still some restrictions on restaurants, barbers and salons. Gov. Henry McMaster has said previous restrictions on businesses will not be put back in place, even as case counts across the state have risen in the past few weeks, culminating in a record 687 reported Thursday.
In response to one comment on Facebook about that rise in cases, the market’s organizers said concerns about the virus are “absolutely valid” but urged people to “please stay tuned as we will be posting the safety plan the City has agreed to.”
This story was originally published June 11, 2020 at 9:04 PM.
