Honey Boy’s BBQ among 18 new vendors at Rockford City Market’s 16th season

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — Rockford City Market, a staple of the summer season, opens for its 16th season on Friday.

“I’m hoping that all that runs fairly smoothly and that the vendors have a great, great crowd down here and the people come down and enjoy themselves and, you know, kind of kick off the summer with the City Market,” said interim City Market director, Cathy McDermott.

Eighteen new vendors will join the more than 50 taking part this year.

Honey Boy’s BBQ is among the new additions.

“We came to the city market last year for the first time, and we said we were like, wow, you know, hopefully, you know, let’s see if we can get in there,” said co-owner Dana Bratton.

Honey Boys BBQ signed up as soon as applications opened in January and were accepted in March.

“Oh, my God, it was like I think it was tantamount to maybe perhaps winning the lottery or something. You know, we were excited. I mean, just ecstatic because to be able to share your gift with people, it doesn’t get any better,” Bratton said.

Also, making sure they have everything ready to go for opening day.

“I’ve been writing notes for about two weeks. Yeah. One of things to do, things to get ready for. And and I’m making sure we have everything packed that we would need out here and everything like that,” said co-owner Chardai Harvey-Bratton.

The City Market does not have an exact attendance estimate for opening day, but organizers expect at least 5,000 people if the weather is good.

“It varies on opening day, but normally if it’s nice weather, we get a really great crowd of thousands,” McLin said.

Bratton said, “We don’t have any expectations.”

“We’re just allowing God to take us where we are supposed to be. That’s it. That’s it,” Harvey-Bratton added.

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