From a modest start in September 2020 intended to reconnect the community and support 11 young small-business owners, SoCo Market is entering its seventh year with a full slate of more than 90 vendors. The market runs monthly from April through August in Santa Rosa’s Old Courthouse Square, and its founder, Mercedes Hernandez, is a powerhouse of Sonoma County entrepreneurship and event planning.
Hernandez launched her first retail business in 2014 while a student at Santa Rosa Junior College. Since then, she’s opened (and closed) one more retail shop, created the Fork’n Good Food Festival and the Michelada-Mimosa Festival, and managed The Trade, an open-air marketplace at The Barlow in Sebastopol.
These days, the SoCo Market and its growing family of gatherings get all of her attention. “Highlighting the creative small business and local talent that we have here in Sonoma County, that’s the heart of all of the events that I put on,” Hernandez says.
Curating the SoCo Market…