Barn Fresh Vintage reopens this weekend.
Denise and Josh Berner, owners of Barn Fresh Vintage Market in Gilbertsville, had to close shop for several months following fire to an adjoining building. Now the pair is getting ready for the grand-reopening of their store.
Five months ago, in November of 2016, Barn Fresh suffered significant loss due to smoke and water damage when a 2-alarm fire took place next door.
“The thing is, last year, because of election year, it was a slow year,” said Denise. “It didn’t seem like a lot of people were buying. We thought after the election, it will get better because people will know what’s going on.”
The fire broke out on the Friday after the election, on November 4.
“Everything had to come out,” she said, explaining how the entire building had to be gutted and all of the vendors were affected by smoke and the damp conditions.
With that incident now in the rearview, the Berners are looking ahead and are excited about changes they’ve been able to make are they rebuild.
Denise says everything is new – the walls, ceiling, and floors. Also, handicap accessibility has been included and some of the vendor booths have been adjusted. Before the fire, there were about 20 vendors at Barn Fresh and now there are 33.
“Because of all this, we lost a few vendors. We had to redesign our booths,” said Denise, adding how vendors usually like to start small in a co-op such as this. “We gained about 13 vendors; lost some, but gained some.”
Denise said she’s been re- ceiving a great amount of positive feedback on Facebook.
“Even though we went through what we did, it seems like it is better now. We got to make some changes that we’ve wanted to make. We made some of the middle booths bigger.” She said they kept aisles wide to accommodate strollers and wheelchairs. “Now it’s geared for everyone, they can go in and out of each booth, a nice flow.”
The public is invited to attend the Grand Re-Opening ribbon cutting celebration at Barn Fresh hosted by the Tri County Chamber of Commerce and Building a Better Boyertown on March 31 at 4 p.m. The grand reopening celebration will continue through the weekend, April 1 and 2.
Barn Fresh Vintage Market is located at 311 County Line Road.