Project: EATS - Small Market Feel for the Small Markets

August 4, 2017

Jenna Firshein

Jersey City is truly a community where local businesses and neighbors help each other. The Farmers Markets are run by local organizations and Jersey City has so many different types of markets, such as Marketplace JC, Makers and Artisan Market, and Midnight Market.

From the same love of our city and other businesses, The Jersey City Project was created. Small businesses came together in response to Hurricane Sandy hurting businesses in Downtown Jersey City. These businesses pooled their resources and thought about how they could raise money in a short amount of time to promote growth -- “Instead of a long-range commitment, the small businesses were looking for a business model that was a closer match to a quick project. Thus, The Jersey City Project was born and out of that Project: EATS and Project: MARKET.” The Jersey City Project works in conjunction with the city using the parking lot behind City Hall for Project: MARKET and Grove Street between Mercer and Montgomery as well as the plaza in the front of City Hall for Project: EATS. So what’s the difference between the markets? Project: EATS is a food festival held toward the end of June to kick off summer and Project: MARKET is a holiday marketplace held during the first weekend in December.

This past June, we went to the lastest Project: EATS and were able to learn a little more about the non-profit and see some of our favorite vendors. Project: EATS held food tastings and demonstrations in City Hall with Busy Bee Organics, Pinwheel Garden, Dine DDK, and Maritime Parc. At the main event there were of course local Jersey City vendors who have become stars in our local food scene. Lunch was served by House of Gains and we could eat their fried chicken thighs all day. Our friends from Moffle Bar were serving up amazingness with their moffle a la mode! Hoboken Mary was selling their pasta sauce and Milk Sugar Love ran out of flavors on the truck.

The market is two days long and each day had its own variety of different vendors and we had friends who visited both days to experience Project: EATS in all its glory. As seen in the list below, there were so many choices that we didn’t know what to choose! We did not get to try the churros from Dulcinea Churros, but we heard they were absolutely amazing. The one suggestion we had was to obtain a list and a map of the vendors to ensure guests were able to visit all of the vendors they wanted to see. For us, the only way we knew who we wanted to check out was to go through the instagram posts and stories.

At the end of the day, The Jersey City Project is the talk of the town whenever it comes to town with vendors and shoppers/eaters alike. We are looking forward to what Project: MARKET will bring this December. Let us know your favorite Jersey City Project Experience!

For additional information on the non-profit please visit the website www.thejerseycityproject.com or Instagram thejerseycityproject.