• Courtesy Of Local Maverick/Harken Spillane
• Maverick Market

Tech and marketing startup Local Maverick has been operating an online version of a farmers market since August 2020, when it began as a collaboration with the Burlington Farmers Market. Now, with Maverick Market at the Essex Experience, the company will host its own weekly in-person shopping event.

Beginning Thursday, June 17, from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m., the market will host 10 to 15 local vendors for on-site shopping at 19 Essex Way, in front of the ArtHound Gallery.

"We're really excited to combine online and off-line to create an immersive market experience in Essex, since right now that doesn't exist," Local Maverick founder and CEO Ryan Nakhleh told Seven Days.

Like Local Maverick's online sales platform, the market will focus on food and drink, rotating through a roster of 50 Vermont businesses. Craft and wellness vendors, food trucks, community programs and live music will round out the experience.

"We really want this to be a discovery zone," Nakhleh said. "Every week you'll find something different."

The vendor lineup for the market's opening night includes the Conscious Eatz plant-based food truck, Magic Mann, Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream, Wild Hart Distillery and Instant Karma Granola. Products from other vendors — including Bee Happy Vermont, Kestrel Coffee Roasters, Nomadic Kitchen, Maple Wind Farm, Curly Girl Pops, Stony Pond Farm and more — will be available on-site at Local Maverick's table.

Preordering is available on Local Maverick's online platform; a drive-through pickup option will arrive later this summer.

Local Maverick has also moved its weekly Saturday pickup for online orders from Burlington to the Essex Experience. Those pickups will happen at Salt & Bubbles Wine Bar and Market, which opens for business on Friday, June 18.

Over the next six months, Local Maverick will work with Essex Experience owner Peter Edelmann and Angela Gerace of the Tipsy Pickle to launch a shared commercial kitchen space for emerging food businesses. The trio hopes to offer workshops and classes, Nakhleh said, as well as sell local products on-site.

"The Essex Experience is becoming such a strong, community-oriented gathering place for food and craft and wellness," Nakhleh said. "The story of an old strip mall adapting is really cool."