Valley Marketplace offers freshness, friendship

By Kalea Hall

khall@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

Fresh bread baking, doughnuts frying and wood being polished.

The sites, sounds and smells inside South Avenue’s Valley Marketplace are plentiful.

Shopping and working here make for a unique experience.

Amish vendors that were once farmers, construction workers and housewives are now slicing cheese and baking cookies for their businesses. And, they are making friends with their customers.

“The aspect of meeting new people and learning to know my customers has been a very interesting adventure,” said Sam Yoder, who operates Yoder’s Country Deli and Yoder’s Fruit and Produce inside the market. “That’s the best part of the business. We have made a lot of good friends.”

Yoder of Burton was in construction before he got into selling produce, meats and cheeses. Yoder wanted to be a vendor so all six of his children could have a job working with him and growing a family business.

“Business is pretty good,” Yoder said. “It keeps improving. If I can have a quality product, then [the customer] will be back. That’s our No. 1 goal, having a quality product at all times.”

Ron Cohen started the market with his wife, Marianne Cohen, in 2013 because he wanted to bring the fresh-quality Amish products to the area.

Cohen’s grandfather, Nate, started opening farmers markets in the Philadelphia area back in 1931.

“He invited some Amish from Lancaster County,” Ron said. “It started to take off.”

After Ron’s grandfather died, Ron’s father, Paul, took over the business that now has 130 Amish vendors.

Ron, who has always been involved in the retail business in some way, and his wife decided five years ago they wanted to try having an Amish market in the Mahoning Valley.

“I couldn’t rent the building without being positive I had tenants,” Ron said. “I had to go with my gut and see who was really interested. In my mind, if we had 20 tenants we would sign.”

Ron drove out to Middlefield in Geauga County and knocked on doors in Amish country.

“I got very friendly with an Amish baker,” he said. “As our friendship grew, he showed me what doors to knock on.”

To show the potential vendors what he was going for, Ron made bus trips with them to other Amish markets. The trips showed them what options they had for a business.

Ron never actually got 20 vendors for the building before he purchased his lease, but something told him the business was a good idea. He says the power of prayer also helped him make the decision to open the market.

“The excitement level was so good that we decided to go [forward],” Ron said.

He morphed two closed stores in the plaza at 6121 South Ave. into one market and divided up the 30,000 square feet of space for his vendors. Today, there are 18 vendors inside the market.

Cora Miller of Geauga County, owner of Cora’s Cookies and Such, is one of them.

Miller and her workers bake fresh breads, cookies, cakes, cinnamon rolls and cupcakes every day the market is open. Most of the recipes are Miller’s, and some have been handed down from her ancestors.

The customers “can taste that it’s homemade,” she said. “The caramel pecan rolls and cinnamon rolls are my speciality.”

Miller, once a small-town bakery manager, is happy she took the leap and started her own business because it has opened doors for more opportunity in business and in friendship.

“I have met a lot of nice people here,” she said.

Customers rave to Ron about the market, but they would like to see it open more than just Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

He points out, however, the purpose of the three-day market is to offer the absolute freshest products.

“It has been a learning process as in any retail [business],” Ron said. “We are doing very well, but we need business. You need to do more and more business. We need more and more customers.”