City’s indoor market is back in business
The hopes and fears of a Cardiff institution
CARDIFF Market is a vital and unmissable part of the capital’s true shopping experience.
Since it shut its doors back in March, a few businesses have carried on serving customers via deliveries, such as Ashton’s Fishmongers and A&S Griffiths Butchers, but the place that’s a hive of activity and a cornucopia of characters, lay mostly dormant for three months.
That was until Monday, when the market – at which you can buy anything from flowers, books and spices, to umbrellas, top hats and Thai food – reopened and many traders returned with extra safety and hygiene measures in place for the safety of traders and shoppers.
Jonathan Trott runs Sullivan’s at the Hayes entrance, which is now the only way into the market; you have to exit the St Mary Street side.
He’s had work at his suppliers for 12 weeks and is now back at his popular fruit and veg stall where he’s shouting out the best deals of the day at the top of his voice.
Full of colour and quality produce, and with a new pick-yourown system, Jonathan hopes business will pick up before long.
“It’s very quiet at the moment, we’re seeing a few regulars but I think they’re a bit scared,” he said.
“I thought it would be a bit better, but they’ve shut the road, Castle Street, and we’ve got the fivemile limit on so we’re not seeing anyone from the Valleys come down.”
“People come to town and they can’t have anything to eat, they can’t use the toilet, there’s the weather – but we’ll have to keep going.
“I have turned it all into selfservice and we have only three customers at a time, there’s hand sanitisers at the door.
“The customers are saying it’s nice to see us back and they are fed up of going to the supermarket, but it’s just letting people know we are here.
“Hopefully, it will pick up, when the pubs and restaurants open, people come into town have a bite to eat, pick up some shopping. A lot of people like to come to the market, sit down, have a cup of tea, walk up and down the aisles and see what’s on offer.” Alan Griffiths runs one of the butcher’s stalls.
The stall has been delivering to regulars as far away as Porthcawl and has been at the market for just over 50 years.
People have said to us they are glad to see us back in Andrew Griffiths of The Market Deli
They’ve opened to the public for the past six weeks on a Saturday after their customers told them they wanted proper quality meat back in their lives.
“It’s very much as I expected,” said Alan. “The footfall is low.”
Alan also cited the closure of Castle Street as a big impact on discouraging some shoppers coming into the city.
“People coming into the city are confused, I was confused, I didn’t see the matrix saying the street was closed until I got to City Hall,” he said.
“This isn’t going to help the footfall. People tend to turn around and go home. The road is big enough to have pedestrianised areas and a single lane up and down.
“It will pick up very slow. People are still afraid to go on public transport. It will build up, but slowly.
“If we don’t get footfall through, I can’t pay the staff the wages they deserve.”
It seems like footfall, road closures and the market’s place in the city’s shopping make-up concern the traders we spoke to, and there were a few traders – mainly the cafes and takeout food places – still not open.
Andrew Griffiths runs the Market Deli which has been in the market since 1906 and he’s worked behind the counter since he was nine (during the summers).
He said: “80% of our trade is lunchtime trade, office workers or shop workers. We’re heavily down on normal trade.”
On a normal lunchtime, the Market Deli is a hive of activity with seven staff working non-stop filling salad boxes or wrapping up their chicken skewers – one not to eat on the go if you’re clumsy.
Now, only Andrew is working, both for the safety of staff thanks to distancing requirements hard to overcome in the small stall, and because there’s not enough trade to justify the full complement of people back in work.
“Physically, it’s not worth having more than one body here, and financially it isn’t either,” Andrew said.
As we talk, customers tell Andrew they are pleased to have him back and the market gets busier as we move towards lunchtime.
“It wouldn’t be the same without us if you asked the customer,” he added. “People have said to us they are glad to see us back in.
“A normal Monday would be about 350-400 customers, Monday I served 25. Tuesday I served 19 and today 12, so far – I might serve another 10 if I am lucky.
“The short-term future, I can’t see us having staff back, maybe one or two after a few weeks and the others filtering in over the next two or three months. It should be the heart of Cardiff but it’s not. If only we were given the same support as St David’s as a commercial entity or the other council properties like the museum.
“A councillor did say we were the jewel in the crown of Cardiff, but that’s not the way the council treat us.”
It’s an obvious worry for traders whose livelihoods rely on a bustling capital city. They are doing all they can to ensure that customers feel safe and confident when shopping.
Levi Talbot has co-run Hatts Emporium with dad Stuart for the past six years. He muses what lockdown will have done to Welsh shoppers’ shopping habits.
“It’s hard not to worry,” he said. “We’ve been in the market for a long time and there’s a community and its shopping is habitual. What has three months of lockdown done to those habits?
“Where they shop, how they shop, especially when you see so much innovation take place on social media from Welsh independents, which is great to see but you see a shift in people ready for a different approach to how we retail things.”
But Levi and Stuart have ensured their vintage and handmade clothes stall is welcoming to customers and is ready for shoppers to browse their stylish products.
“We had to come in to clean down the pitch, get our PPE (personal protection equipment), make sure we had new procedures in place how we go about disinfecting our products, which are dry-cleaned and then we have a steamer with disinfectant in, too,” said Levi.
“Actually making people feel comfortable shopping in this space, that was the challenge for us making sure consumers want to come and shop with us and reassure them.
“We had to think how do we want them to come in and shop and engage with the product?”
Though mostly positive about his stall’s place in the market and going forward, Levi wishes shoppers held the indoor market in the same regard as places that attracted queues.
“I’m happy to be back in the building, seeing the other traders back open, but it was a bit disappointing to be honest, you see all these other business like Primark with queues and you can’t get to Culverhouse Cross because of the queues of traffic, so it was a bit deflating to come in on Monday and not see us met with the same amount of enthusiasm,” said the dad-of-two.
“But, in the same sense, we’re all here to persevere and if the building is not open and not being used what happens to those habitual shoppers, so we had to roll up our sleeves and just be there and be ready.
“Everybody’s had regulars, it’s been nice. The amount of older people and those with disabilities still out there using the building and confidently shopping it’s reassuring because you do worry about that particular shopper. They use the market a lot and are comfortable here. It was great to see those shoppers in and smiling.”
Shoppers Sian and Trystan Francis are back in the market for the first time since lockdown. They are impressed with the system put in place in terms of safety and hygiene.
Trystan, who was pleased that the Thai Asian Delish counter was serving again, said: “It’s great to have the market back open and it’s a step in the right direction in terms of getting things back open.”
While Sian added: “I think outside of the city centre you’ve lost many independent butchers and you can’t get any fresh fish outside the market.”