The Sunset Connection - Perspectives from SF's Sunset Neighborhood

The Return of the Sunset Night Market and Holiday Updates With Angie Petitt

• Jessica J. Ho • Season 1 • Episode 17

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What happened to the Sunset Night Market? What is Sunset Mercantile? And how did the Outer Sunset Farmers Market and Mercantile get started? Is there anything happening for the holidays in the Sunset?

Tune in to The Sunset Connection, where Jessica Ho talks with Angie Pettit of Sunset Mercantile about upcoming community events - from Diwali (Oct 19) and the Halloween Farmers Market (Oct 26) to the Halloween Night Bazaar (Oct 31), Holiday Mercantile, Light Stroll, and more.

✨ See the full calendar at sunsetmercantilesf.com

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The Sunset Connection — exploring the stories and histories that connect us.

Jessica Ho:

If you've ever wandered down 37th Avenue on a Sunday morning with coffee in one hand and an empanada in another, you have my guest to thank for that, and that's Angie Pettit. Angie seems to do it all. She's a small business owner, an active Sunset resident, a mom, and a community leader. She's the co-founder and CEO of Sunset Mercantile and the creative force behind the Outer Sunset Farmers Market and Mercantile. I'm proud to say that Angie and I go way back to the days when I was running for office back in 2018 and she was helping Dawn from Sunset Youth Services organize the Sunset Community Festival. And we kept on crossing paths in the community when I was at Pops and the pandemic happened, and eventually I brought her into the North Beach Festival when I was on the North Beach Business Association. So today we're gonna talk about Angie and how she built this movement from the ground up and how she keeps her spark alive and what the sunset has in store for the holidays ahead. So welcome, Angie.

Angie Petitt:

Thank you, Jessica. It's so great to see you this morning.

Jessica Ho:

So when did you know you wanted to do the community events in the Sunset District?

Angie Petitt:

Well, interestingly, it started off where I got into community building events through a small antique business and doing a festive family-friendly antique fair in the park back in 2001, I believe. The focus of it was being an antique show, but I had um done a lot of antique shows, having a small antique business, and they were all very dry and boring, and it just felt like there was just something really missing. I brought in some children's activities and had live music and beer and wine, and that was the very first community building event that I had. It wasn't really meant to be community building, but I just instinctively felt like this antique show needed something, and it's here in Golden Gate Park. But then fast forward several years after having children, I out of conversations with other moms in the neighborhood once our kids were in elementary school, thinking about the time that we had on our hands and perhaps revisiting work or starting a little business that we've been dreaming of. And conversations led me to realizing that it was hard to create a brick and mortar in the sunset or just in general, that the outer sunset needed a little bit more things to do back in 2014, that a pop-up marketplace that was festive and family friendly where our kids could be there and having fun. And um, there was the community festival. But what I was focusing on was more of a marketplace that would bring the community together and people could have fun at. So it took about five years to ever actually make any money from it. It was always just paying for itself. So it was a bit of a hobby for about five years. And uh I think honestly, I do I I feel that it built slowly, just being asked to have these little pop-ups in in maybe a corner of a neighborhood in the Fillmore where my friend Voss asked me to pop up over there. And it was just a five vendors and a little bit of music and a couple of activities and just seeing the happy faces of not just people coming across things that are for sale, but creating a little community gathering space, activating the schoolyard and uh activating a parking lot later in Portula. I started to slowly recognize that this was special, but I didn't know how to make it sustainable. And so I didn't really think that I was going to be doing this as a full-time job at all until I think we hit the pandemic. The outer sunset farmers market was probably the real turning point there.

Jessica Ho:

Wow. So you started Sunset Mercantile back in 2014, but it wasn't until 2020 that you felt like you had the momentum to grow from a small pop-up to a citywide operation?

Angie Petitt:

Yes. It was supervisor Gordon Maher asking me to start a farmers market in the outer sunset because there was a need just before the pandemic, we started planning for this farmers market. And the pandemic came and we didn't think we'd be able to uh launch it until we recognized that it was actually an essential business. Our mission is to connect community and bring causes together and support local small businesses. So this farmers market wasn't just going to be farmers and food artisans. It was going to be a festive family-friendly event. But it was a little questionable as to what we really were, because we really weren't just in a uh fit neatly into a whole of a farmer's market. We were different. We we wanted to come out of the gate different. We knew what the community needed, and we fought pretty hard to execute the pieces of that that uh were really not being allowed, like no live music and social distancing and no activities. But yet we were able to think out of the box and have conversations with the city. And we created social distancing. We made big circles on the ground where people could stand and listen to the music and everybody wore masks, and it was outdoors. Yes, we designed it and we built it, uh, but it really was the community that shaped it, and it became uh such a special destination to the community.

Jessica Ho:

So, how is the Sunset Farmers Market different than other farmers markets?

Angie Petitt:

We came at this at a slightly different direction. The focus was the community and filling a need for the community. Um, we learned how to support the farmers. Um, we learned what it was to be a farmers market, and there's live performances, there's activities, we have art ship now. There's just so much more to it than just shopping. Got it. And when did you guys launch officially? Uh we were scheduled at first to launch in April 2020, then in March, we know it happened, and we called it all off. But then again, uh just thank goodness Supervisor Gordon Marr was such a just his off him and Edward Wright and and other people from SFOEWD that were so helpful um and helping us to navigate it. And we just kept forging forth. I felt like that was quite the collaboration between OEWD, Supervisor Gordon Maher's office, the city, uh Sunset Mercantile, and people of Parkside Sunset, who we couldn't have launched this without. They are our fiscal sponsors and our partners in maintaining the farmers market.

Jessica Ho:

How did you know what the community needed? Did you do surveys, or like how were you able to know that the Sunset District wanted something different than just a regular farmer's market?

Angie Petitt:

Really, I have Sunset Cooperative Nursery School to thank for the inspiration and community building. Um, that preschool is all about community, community coming together to raise children. We work work together. Um, I was participating as a volunteer parent in helping to organize some of the big fundraisers. That fusion and coming from such a community-focused school, so many people that you know uh probably came through Sunset Cooperative Nursery School, whether they were a child or a parent. And I think we all came away from just such a strong sense of community. And so when I started Sunset Mercantile, it was conversations with other community members. I remember distinctly these conversations walking down the street in front of Francis Scott Key. Um people have dreams and ideas, um, but they need a good place to present them. Places to connect. Through connecting, you create safety, you create kind of a sense of family. So many of us, you I I feel like you're family. I I wasn't born in the sense that I wasn't born in San Francisco, but uh I lived here since 1992. And from really the moment of raising my children, that created the sense of village. And uh I knew that the village, our village, really needed more to do, needed more for kids to do, needed a place to connect. People with small business ideas, micro businesses needed a space to be able to present those ideas. Can't really just go grab a brick and mortar and turn yourself into an entrepreneur. So a lot of wonderful creative people needed needed a place to connect with others. And we saw that with Sunset Mercantile. And so as we got towards, all right, fusing it with a farmer's market, it was organic. We were able to get live music and we could see that the live music was literally lifting people's souls during a very dark time. And it was the only place you could hear live music. So we increased that. We made two performance spaces. The musicians donated their time for the most part for so long, and people were so grateful. And there's just a synergy and creating a space where people can just share their talents and do what they want to do.

Jessica Ho:

Thank you so much. I know it's hard to describe in words, so I appreciate you trying, but I think it's important that we try to verbalize and explain what we're building here. How else can it be replicated, right? And other places and other spaces. Um, so hopefully other communities are have another Angie, you know, that it's interested in in growing, um, who has a vision of what community looks like and then has the everything else to be able to do it. Yeah. Thank you. Now that we are here in 2025, five years after the pandemic, what are some exciting events that you would like to share with our community?

Angie Petitt:

Yeah, well, Diwali started about three years ago after uh Shanta and Tina, two beautiful community members that uh came forward and had asked if we could celebrate Diwali at the farmer's market. And I said, absolutely. If any community members have something special that they would like to help steer and drive, um, that's that's kind of one of the special aspects of the farmers market is really listening and hearing um and letting the community mold this event. Um Diwali is coming up on the 19th, October 19th at the farmers market. We celebrate Halloween, of course, on the 26th at the farmers market. We've also opened a store up in the inner sunset called the Sunset Mercantile Emporium, and that is a brick and mortar version of what we're doing, where we celebrate and showcase over 60 local makers and merchants. And so there in the inner sunset, we're celebrating Halloween as well, trick-or-treating throughout the inner sunset. But uh other unexciting things that are happening is we're collaborating with the California Academy of Sciences, as well as a couple of other community partners from other neighborhoods surrounding Golden Gate Park, co-creating an event called the Avenues, Nightlife in the Avenues. So uh that'll be highlighting local makers and merchants from The Sunset, who we were bringing there, and Fleetwood from the Richmond and the Fate from The Hate this Thursday as well as next month. Night lights. You can purchase tickets through Cal Academy for those nightlights. I know that you were also helping with the Sunset Night Markets in the past. Yes. Happy to share. Yeah. So yes, we started the Sunset Night Market back in 2023. And then in 2024, we collaborated with the Sunset Chinese Cultural District into the streets, Wa May, as an Asian Inc. to grow the Sunset Night Market. And uh that happened in 2024. We had two of them. And in 2025, there was a big delay in funding, so we weren't able to relaunch it right away. And there were questions about schedule conflicts with big events in the park and not wanting to inundate the Irving Street merchants with, you know, with parking issues with all the big events. And there's just quite a variety of reasons why we hadn't started planning it. So we housed the planning and are looking now and have been for the last few months, really ironing out what would make sense for the merchant corridors. We want to uplift the merchant corridors. We don't want to conflict with the merchant corridors. Always a bouncing act of creating something that feels like it's going to work for everybody. So that's taken some time. But I'm excited to share that we are looking at relaunching the Sunset Night Market, hopefully for lunar new year celebration next year, along with up to three more cultural celebrations throughout the year as the Sunset Night Market. But in the meantime, we are launching a Halloween night bazaar, a mini night market on Irving Street, Halloween night. I'm really excited about that one because I have two teenagers. I feel like our youth that are young adults don't really have enough to do just to be outside and be seen, not needing to go to bars. Can't go to bars, you know, when you're in your teens, you're a little too old to trick-or-treat. So I just feel like a night bazaar that's really focused on activities and games and dancing. And hopefully we can support the businesses on Irving Street with this, as well as um some of the pop-up vendors. That is Halloween night bazaar on Halloween night, the 31st. And that'll be exciting.

Jessica Ho:

Albert says that movies and McCoppin also is going to be on Friday, the 31st. Exactly.

Angie Petitt:

Yeah. So we'll be highlighting that as well. There's a variety of um neighborhood celebrations around the sunset that we want to highlight and bring synergy to the sunset for Halloween night. So movies and McCoppin is a really awesome. They're they're showing cocoa. I think you just talked about it the other day in your podcast. So you're gonna have some great options. It's a Friday night. So hoping everybody just stays out late and has a good time in the sunset. Great. And then is there something else happening in December? We are going to be celebrating the holidays at the farmers market. We'll have a lot more holiday pop-up vendors. We also are bringing back our uh sunset holiday mercantile at the county fair building. That's a big two-day event at the county fair building to give the local makers and merchants a warm and dry place to pop up at. This year we're collaborating with the Sharon Arts Studio, lots of live music, great food vendors, beer and wine, all sorts of fun, lively libations. It's a great event at the County Fair Building. And then on conjunction with that, on that Saturday, we celebrate the Inner Sunset Holiday Light Stroll, celebrating the Inner Sunset Merchant Corridor with festive activities and living windows. That's a wonderful feature of this event that Shannon of SIPT brought to our attentions, helped develop is this living windows of having people dressed up and kind of acting out scenes in the windows. It's pretty special. And we offer trolley rides to share the just to explore the inner sunset. So those are two very special events. That first weekend it is in December. Then we move to holidays on Terravel. That's another wonderful tradition that we've built last couple of years, collaborating with people at Parkside Sunset and again Huam May and Sunset Chinese Cultural District to uplift the merchants of Teravel and celebrate the holidays around the lighting, the traditional lighting of the tree there at McCopin Square. And then last, I don't know this is really last. I feel like there's, oh, and then Coal Valley Night. We have we relaunched that in November. Um, and then uh, but then we are also creating another holiday night bazaar, uh, very similar to the Halloween bazaar, but it's a focus on the holidays on Irving Street. Um, really want to uplift those businesses. Wow, you're very busy. A lot to look forward to this holiday season. Yes, exactly. The avenues will come alive.

Jessica Ho:

So, how do people get involved? How do they learn more about the dates, the time, all these festivals? Is it your website? Is it comes to your brick and mortar? Do you have information there? Like, you know, how do people stay in the loop?

Angie Petitt:

Gosh, thanks for asking that. Uh, we, yes, we have a website. Uh, we have a calendar on our website, calendar at a glance, but you'll also see details for all of our upcoming events right there at sunsetmercantile sf.com. And yes, at the Sunset Mercantile Emporium at 653 Irving Street at Eighth Avenue, we have flyers for everything and posters, as well as other community events. And of course, at our weekly farmers market at our info booth, you'll find lots of information there as well. Um, how to support. We love your coming. That's always wonderful. There are sponsorship and support ship opportunities for all of our events, sponsorship opportunities for bigger businesses, local brick and mortars. We offer special support ship, kind of sponsorship opportunities for small businesses and small business pocketbook. We have a lot of activities on our art ship and our friend zones also offer QR codes if anybody's interested in supporting the arts and the crafts and the activities. Um, we do have ways to donate there at the event and on our website.

Jessica Ho:

Angie, thank you so much for being the heartbeat of the West Side and for showing what community looks like when it's built out of creativity, grit, and thousand tiny acts of goodwill. Now, I would like to play a game of tribia with you. Since you work on the farmers market, I thought it'd be fun to kind of talk about the farmers market in the context of the United States.

Angie Petitt:

Oh boy. I will do my best.

Jessica Ho:

All right, here we go. So question number one. How many farmers markets are operating across the US today? A 3,000, B, 5,500, C, 8,000, or D 12,000. And this is approximate.

Angie Petitt:

I'm gonna guess 12,000.

Jessica Ho:

The answer C 8,000. Oh, that was so close. It's close. I mean, you're right.

Angie Petitt:

It's there's a lot. A lot. Yeah, it's beautiful. A lot of communities have the farmer's market.

Jessica Ho:

Question number two. What percentage of Americans visit a farmer's market at least once a year? A 40%. B 60%. C 80%. Or D 90%. I am going to guess.

Angie Petitt:

I'm gonna guess 40%? It's C. Oh, 80%. That's fantastic. And be happy to hear that I'm wrong, actually. So 80% of Americans attend at least one market per year.

Jessica Ho:

That's like I feel like that. House is like an American tradition then.

Angie Petitt:

I would say so. Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Ho:

Among frequent attendees, what percentage visit six times or more per year?

Angie Petitt:

Ah.

Jessica Ho:

Is that a 50%, D 25%, C41%, or D60%? I'm gonna say 60%. 41%, so about 40%, like you said, uh visit. Actually, about 40% of farmers market visitors go six times or more um a year. Interesting, yeah.

Angie Petitt:

Alright, so at the end of very interesting trivia. Well, I learned something new today. Thank you, Jessica.

Jessica Ho:

Thank you, Angie, for playing. All right. Um that's a wrap for this episode of the Sunset Connection. Big thanks to Angie Pettit and the entire Sunset Mercantile crew for showing what it means to build community with heart, creativity, and persistence. If you haven't yet, check out this Outer Sunset Farmers Market every Sunday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. or stop by the Sunset Mercantile Emporium on Irving Street. Thanks for being part of this one. I'm Jessica Ho, and this has been the Sunset Connection. See you out there in the neighborhood.

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