Vince Fava remembers running around Trinacria, his family’s Italian market that opened on N. Paca Street in 1908, when he was a young child.
“I’ve been here since I was a little kid,” said Fava, the third-generation owner and operator of Trinacria, “If I wasn’t in school, I was here. If I wasn’t here, I was in school. So I’ve been here forever,” he said.
“I guess that’s how Italians were,” he added.
Fava will expand the family business by opening a stall in the new Lexington Market, which is currently under construction just south of the existing East Market.
The new market is scheduled to open later this year.
Opening a stall in Lexington Market, one of the city’s most iconic neighborhood markets and the country’s oldest continuously operating market, is a “tremendous opportunity,” Fava said.
“I really believe in the area,” he said.
In the new Lexington Market, Trinacria will offer New-York style pizza by the slice, classics like meatball subs and Italian sandwiches, and grocery items like sauces, olive oils, and frozen and fresh pastas and raviolis.
Seawall, the project’s developer, is “giving a chance for local entrepreneurs to start up,” Fava said.
Seawall has currently announced 23 vendors out of 45 available spots. Popular food spots like Taharka Brothers Ice Cream, Ovenbird Bakery (singled out last week by Food & Wine for having the best bread in Maryland), and Connie’s Chicken and Waffles have already signed leases in the new market.
The firm has many more leases signed, said Katie Marshall, a spokeswoman for Seawall, and will continue to announce vendors in the lead up to the market’s opening.
Seawall received over 400 vendor applications in the two region-wide calls for vendors that the firm put out in 2020 and 2021.
“We’re overwhelmingly encouraged by the amount of interest and applicants,” Marshall said.
“We’re feeling good about things,” she said, “The project is definitely on track.”
The new city-owned market – operated by Lexington Market Inc. and Baltimore Public Markets Corporation – will hopefully encourage changes to the area around it, said Tim “Chyno” Chin, co-owner of Pinch Dumplings in Mount Vernon Marketplace who runs the Instagram account thebaltimorefoodie.
“You can’t just put a diamond in the middle of the coal mine and think that it’s going to shine,” Chin said.
Chin, a Baltimore native, recalls going to the old Lexington Market with his family on Sundays.
In developing the new market, the city has been “keeping up with the present, being fresh and new, but also holding onto those mainstays from the past,” Chin said.
“We’re really excited about the rejuvenation of that space because of how much history it holds for Baltimore, for black Baltimore specifically, so seeing it go through this transformation is amazing to me,” he said.
“I have a lot of fond memories from the old one and I can’t wait to see what they do with the new one,” Chin added.
