{"id":371824,"date":"2026-06-23T19:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/371824\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T19:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:10:09","slug":"berkeley-flea-market-now-has-a-weekday-storefront","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/371824\/","title":{"rendered":"Berkeley Flea Market now has a weekday storefront"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AKristen Spencer sits in front of the Berkeley Flea Market\u2019s new consignment shop at 1937 Ashby Ave.. Credit: Daniel Ekonde\/Berkeleyside<\/p>\n

The Berkeley Flea Market is going brick-and-mortar.<\/p>\n

The market\u2019s organizers have opened a consignment shop where vendors can display their items three days a week just across the street from the weekend market\u2019s home at the Ashby BART station, as part of an effort to revitalize the half-century-old institution.<\/p>\n

The shop features a wide variety of items including paper art, Star Wars Lego sets, hand-crafted jewelry, natural shea butter, plants, clothing and sunglasses. Sellers display their goods on a monthly basis with a rotation, ensuring everyone gets highlighted, according to Kristen Spencer, the store\u2019s manager.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Open since May, the store at 1937 Ashby Ave. operates Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a plan to eventually transition to a Monday-to-Friday schedule. Each vendor keeps 80% per sale and the store retains 20%, with prices of items ranging from $2.50 for a paper art to $250 for an African mask.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a consignment store that helps our vendors at the weekend market promote their items on a daily basis,\u201d Spencer said. \u201cThis is their business, and that\u2019s what we want to help promote [for] them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spencer said displaying the vendors\u2019 items in the shop, which used to be the office of the Berkeley Flea Market, helps inform the community that the market is still functioning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of misinformation about the market closing and disappearing,\u201d Spencer said.<\/p>\n

The market\u2019s longtime operator, the nonprofit Community Services United, sent a memo to vendors in May of 2025 saying it was shutting down due to operational costs<\/a>. Sellers kept showing up anyway, and in August, the market officially reopened after signing a two-year contract with BART<\/a>. Since then, the number of vendors who attend on Saturday, the peak day of the market\u2019s weekend schedule, has increased from 20 to 35 on average.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AfricanAfrican artifacts for sale at the Berkeley Flea Market\u2019s new consignment shop. Credit: Daniel Ekonde\/Berkeleyside<\/p>\n

Organizers envision new chapter for South Berkeley institution<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the market celebrated more than 50 years of operation and marked a new beginning, rallying about 60 vendors in its Ashby parking lot. Berkeley Mayor Adena Ishii and South Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett attended the event, which featured music performances from keyboardist and producer Mike \u201cSpiderman\u201d Robinson and R&B singer Niecey LivingSingle, and food offerings by local vendors.<\/p>\n

The four food trucks that offered meals will continue selling at the market in an effort to improve foot traffic, said Artrenia Harris, president of Community Services United.<\/p>\n

\"VendorsThe Berkeley Flea Market officially shut down for several weeks last summer, though vendors continued coming to the Ashby BART station\u2019s parking lot. Credit: Daniel Ekonde\/Berkeleyside<\/p>\n

Harris said the market can peak at 40 sellers on Saturdays and can drop to 17 on Sundays, and the $30 fee each seller pays is the main source of revenue at the moment, signaling it is still struggling to keep its doors open.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The stall rate, which helps to cover the $750 monthly rent to BART for the parking lot, is capped at an \u201caffordable\u201d fee, \u201ccreating economic opportunities for small businesses, artists, and entrepreneurs,\u201d Harris said.\u00a0 The market is waiting to hear back from grants it has applied for. However, it received a $2,750 grant from the city of Berkeley for Saturday\u2019s grand opening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An online marketplace for vendors to post their items is also being rolled out, said Harris. The store will permit sellers to independently create storefronts, upload images and list items. Other revitalization efforts in the works include a vendors\u2019 appreciation day planned for next month, a music festival scheduled for August and a job fair and senior citizens\u2019 day.<\/p>\n

“*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kristen Spencer sits in front of the Berkeley Flea Market\u2019s new consignment shop at 1937 Ashby Ave.. Credit:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[61962,8012,2465,2466,143,145,144,32958],"class_list":["post-371824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-ashby-avenue","tag-berkeley-flea-market","tag-home-highlight","tag-home-lead","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-south-berkeley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}