Most winter mornings, Jaime Randle piles bread, stacks of cups and cleaning supplies into the back of her SUV and commutes about two hours from her Connecticut home her stall at the Union Square Holiday Market in New York. “It’s like opening a mini store every week,” she says.
Randle, 39, is the founder and chef at Coco Bred, a food stand offering portable coco bread pockets stuffed with Jamaican jerk chicken, oxtail and curry goat. Being a vendor at the popular tourist destination is expensive and “exhausting,” but rewarding, she says. Starting Nov. 13, Coco Bred brought in over $31,000 in sales in the first 17 days at the market, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It — clearing her almost $23,000 market entrance fee in under a month.
Renting a booth at markets across the U.S. can cost up to tens of thousands of dollars for vendors who sell trinkets, tea towels or Jamaican jerk chicken sandwiches. Despite the costly investment and up to 12-hour-long days spent running the pop-ups, some small-business owners say they bring in more revenue and profit in seven weeks at holiday markets than the rest of the year…