Popular Lake Norman market has a new home — for 4 months
The popular Josh’s Farmers Market pulled up stakes again and opened Friday in a new temporary location at a prime Lake Norman intersection.
Workers were setting up early Friday at 558 River Highway (N.C. 150), beside Duckworth’s Grill & Taphouse Mooresville at the busy intersection with Bluefield Road.
“No where near finished but we are calling it a night,’’ Josh’s posted on Facebook around 1:30 a.m. Friday. “10 am start time Friday.”
Garrett Deweese, brother-in-law of Josh’s Farmers Market owner Josh Graham, was out at the site with a crew later in the morning. They lifted boxes of fresh vegetables and other products off a company truck, and Deweese and others readied them for display under the market’s giant white tent.
“It’s like a traveling circus,” Deweese quipped to a Charlotte Observer reporter at the site at 9:30 a.m. He was referring to Josh’s moves to temporary sites since a town ruling last year forced its closure beside Lowe’s YMCA in Mooresville.
.jpg "20230929_092944 (1).jpg")
The town considered Josh’s to be a “full-time retail establishment,” not an “outdoor seasonal sales market” under new town zoning rules, town officials said last year in a news release posted on Facebook, NextDoor and other platforms.
And that meant Josh’s must operate in a building, like the town’s 1,800 other retailers do, according to the news release.
In January, Josh’s lost its appeal of the fines before the Mooresville Board of Adjustment.
Josh’s most recently operated on 2 acres along Brawley School Road near the Harris Teeter-anchored Shoppes at Morrison Plantation. The town gave Josh’s a temporary permit to sell its fresh fruit and vegetables, NC-caught seafood and other products there.
Josh’s temporary outdoor seasonal sales permit for 630 Brawley School Road expired on Sept. 23, town spokeswoman Megan Suber said Friday.
On Sept. 20, the town granted Josh’s a similar permit for the 558 River Highway site, she said. It’s valid through Jan. 1, at the applicant’s request, she added.
In Mooresville, outdoor seasonal sales permits are good for up to four months per property lot, per calendar year, Suber said.
Josh’s said on its Facebook page earlier in the week it would close move to the River Highway site.
“We will resume and expand pumpkin season once there and will be happily offering NC Christmas Trees at this new site for our 19th consecutive season!!” market officials posted on Facebook.
No long-term plans have been announced.
“The business is choosing to operate in this temporary, transient manner,” Suber said in an email to the Observer on Saturday. “There are opportunities within Town limits to operate as a retail business at a longer-term or permanent location with facilities that meet state building code requirements.”
This story was originally published September 29, 2023 at 11:50 AM.