Beginning in April, Farmers from across North Alabama arrive at the Festhalle Farmers Market, located on 1st Avenue in downtown Cullman, each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 7 a.m. until 2 p.m., carrying truckloads of freshly-picked, home-grown produce.

Delby Chambers helps manage Chambers Farm in Holly Pond. Depending on the season, she sells anything from beans and peppers to herbs and decorative flowers. On Thursday, April 17, standing behind a bright red display of ripe strawberries, she said that her family have been frequent vendors at the Festhalle for least the past five years.

She said having a centralized location, with a website and social media presence, available for family farms like hers to sell their produce was a tremendous improvement over the “road-side” setups traditionally used by farmers.

“I think its a great place. We’ve got good management, it’s a good place to sell and we’ve got a lot of customers coming out. We just really enjoy it here,” Chambers said.

At the time of its construction in 2007, the Festhalle was touted as the largest timber-framed structure in Alabama. Utilizing an old-world mortise and tennon construction method and marrying European styles with the surrounding shopping district have seamlessly incorporated the open air market into the rest of Cullman downtown warehouse district. Former market manager and Cullman Mayor Don Green previously told The Times those touches had been an intentional effort to revitalize the downtown area several weeks prior to the markets opening

“It’s an important piece of the puzzle that is the revitalization effort,” Green said in 2007. “The thought is that if we can get people to come to the market, they may also visit the museum, the depot, the warehouse district and some downtown shops.”

The Festhalle has become the anchor for many of the city’s signature events in the last two decades. It has showcased countless locally grown strawberries each year during the Alabama Strawberry Festival and is transformed into a traditional biergarten each fall during the city’s Oktoberfest celebration.

Now under the management of the Cullman City Parks, Recreation and Sports Tourism department, the Festhalle has begun partnering with outside agencies, such as the North Alabama Agriplex, to benefit the community at large.

Each Saturday, the Agriplex holds their Power of Produce program, which encourages children 13 and younger to expand their palettes by offering free samples of some of the produce available in the market that day. Kids are then given two “POP bucks” they can use to purchase items from the Festhalle.

The Agriplex has also used the connections it has made with local farmers at the Festhalle to build its gleaning program which donates unused produce to local food banks and non profits to combat food insecurity.

Bill Fortenberry acknowledges that the home-grown, speciality mushrooms he offers at the Festhalle is more a niche market than the typical fair of sweet potatoes or watermelons available from most vendors. But still, he said he had witnessed more speciality farmers such as himself finding a home at the Festhalle.

“I think it’s a vibrant, dynamic market and I’ve seen traffic increase over the last several years. It’s one of those ‘a rising tide lifts all ships’ situations to where we’ve got more truck farms as well as those individuals doing things like goat cheese or bakeries. More finished product and agricultural products that, I think, creates a nice symbiosis with the community.

Fortenberry credited this to the Festhalle’s well-oiled maintenance and marketing as well as the area’s acute focus on promoting local businesses and recreational opportunities.

“Having some higher dollar, well-organized shopping and infrastructure as well as the park facilities like the skate park. Kind of all of it — I have to say has been very well managed,” Fortenberry said. “Normally I’m the type of guy that would complain about poor governmental management, but in this case, I think they’ve done a really great job.”

Patrick Camp may be reached by email at patrick.camp@cullmantimes.com or by phone at 256-734-2131 ext. 238.