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Loyal and new customers gather on Fridays at the With Love restaurant for takeout meals.

Salt City Market, which plans to open in January, began offering “Takeout Fridays” on Nov. 6 and will continue until Dec. 18. Customers can preorder their takeout online as early as Wednesday and then pick up their food from 5-8 p.m. on Friday. The weekly dinner service aims to improve connections in the Syracuse community, said CJ Butler, marketing and communications specialist for the market.

“People are really sick of takeout at this point in the pandemic,” Butler said. “It’s really exciting to have something that’s just fun. It’s different. There’s that element of surprise of having a different vendor every week.”

Each week, the market allows one of its 10 vendors to offer takeout service. The market, located at 435 N. Salina St., includes a wide variety of cuisines, including Thai, Jamaican and Southern soul food. Some vendors also make pies and cold-pressed juice.

Adam Sudmann, the market manager of Salt City Market, wanted to create the service to introduce vendors to customers and create relationships before the market opens its location in January.

“We just have a lot of really interesting talent-driven people in town who cook great food, and we’d love to share food and share culture and make those connections,” Sudmann said.

The vendors have held events in the past such as pop-ups and other takeout events since 2019. One reason the market decided to host “Takeout Friday” events during the pandemic is to offer customers a new takeout option, Butler said.

The market planned to open on Nov. 16, but construction setbacks delayed the opening to January. The takeout events are also an opportunity for vendors to practice their skills by working under pressure and interacting with customers, Sudmann said.

Dreamer Johnson, owner of Miss Prissy’s soul food restaurant, has hosted three takeout events in the past, including this summer. The Salt City Market takeout events put pressure on her, but she enjoys interacting and getting feedback from customers.

“People are inquisitive,” Johnson said. “People are curious, and if you get a chance to share just a little bit of your culture, that’ll bridge the gap and a lot of cultural biases will be eradicated.”

It’s important for the market to work with vendors because it’s difficult to succeed in the restaurant industry, especially during COVID-19, Sudmann said. Providing a space for vendors to express their talents with a strong support system will relieve some stress, he said.

“There’s easier, less risky ways of entering into this particular business,” Sudmann said. “(The vendors) feel more alive, more relevant and more powerful when they are cooking the food and sharing it.”

The takeout food offered on “Takeout Fridays” includes Jamaican food from Erma’s Island. Courtesy of CJ Butler

Although there are limitations in the kitchen for safety reasons, vendors and chefs still feel it is important to serve food during this time. Johnson works in a family business, so she has not faced many of the challenges other vendors have dealt with, she said. For chefs working in the kitchen, one of the largest challenges can be wearing a mask due to the heat and having limited amounts of workers in the kitchen, she said.

The market has invested in COVID-19 precautions for when they open in January, Sudmann said. The building capacity is around 500 people for interior and exterior, and Sudmann plans to frequently sanitize all surfaces of the building and test workers according to state guidelines.

Sudmann hopes that with COVID-19 precautions in place, customers will feel safe visiting the market and that the market will be a welcoming place to enter no matter customers’ race, religion, or ethnic background.

“Food is the universal thing that keeps people together — signaling to people that their food is welcome here, their culture is welcome here, they are welcome here,” Butler said.

Published on November 15, 2020 at 9:15 pm