Hundreds of shoppers headed to the South End on Black Friday for opening day of the SoWa Winter Festival, some sipping on hot chocolate as they browsed booths.
Boston resident Nancy Nicosia, who founded the market a decade ago with her husband Mario, said their goal is to promote local, homemade goods.
“We strive to have people who are creating the things on their own,” she said. “We really are in support of small businesses, that’s what we want to do.”
The market, which runs until Dec. 28, features more than 120 New England small businesses and festive decor, including hanging lights inspired by town squares in Florence, Italy.
Vendor Marianne Janik, a Milton native who left her job as a biologist to grow her handcrafted jewelry venture Calli b., described the market as a “beautiful social experience” that strikes a sharp contrast with online stores.
“When people step away and do all their shopping online, there’s a disconnect there,” she said. “What this does is it brings people out to see what people are doing, and everything’s unique.”
She also pointed to the history of the building where the festival is held. Years ago, this space supplied power to the city’s trolley system.
“We have torn down a lot of our history. We don’t have a lot of it left,” Janik said. “So this just represents all of the magic of Boston, one of the oldest cities in the nation.”
Robert Peiper, who runs a homemade chocolate business called the Chocolate Pan with his wife in Palmer, Maine, is at the festival for the second year in a row. He described the interior of the building as “magnificent” and said he enjoys greeting his customers.
“Normally, a lot of times when you’re in this kind of business you’re in the back making product,” he said. “But here, I get to interact with people on a daily basis.”
Caroline John, from Providence, Rhode Island, began her hair accessory business Line & Co during the pandemic. She said the SoWa market enabled her to focus on her creations full-time.
“I would be screwed without it, honestly,” she said of the festival. “I just do popups, and online and wholesale. But I don’t have a storefront — so I do really depend on this for my livelihood.”
Local resident Alyssa Meers is the marketing manager for Parkside Bookshop, an independent bookstore in the South End that opened in September 2024.
“You give a customer this little quiz like, ‘What kind of books have you liked in the past, what genres do you like, are you open to trying something new,’” she said. “Booksellers, they’re in it all the time, they just know so much — and they’ll find you the perfect book.”
