Sugar Grove to have a French Market this summer

Sugar Grove will have an outdoor market with French flair this summer, as the village board Tuesday agreed to let the French Market company run one.

It will replace the Sugar Grove Chamber of Commerce’s Farmers Market. The group decided to drop the market after the volunteers who ran it stepped down.

“It’s nice to have a professional firm come in” to fill the void, Village President Sean Michels said.

The three-year agreement gives Bensidoun USA the right to run the market and outlines who will supply utilities. Bensidoun takes care of getting vendors and setting up and dismantling the market booths each week.

“One of our concerns was that (setup) might take up too much of our staff time,” Michels said.

The market will still be held from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays, June through mid-October.

Bensidoun USA runs French Markets throughout the suburbs, including one on Sunday mornings in Geneva. It is a subsidiary of a French firm that began running outdoor markets nearly 60 years ago in Paris.

There will be a meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday for former farmers market vendors and people interested in the new venture. It will be at the Sugar Grove Library, 125 Municipal Drive.