Vendors are lined up putting the finishing touches on their displays along Trade Street. The festival is within one hour of opening.
This vendor is offering wreaths designed in ribbon and bows near The Stomping Ground.
Color is the theme of this vendor. Face painting and hair coloring are among the features offered.
A dog patiently keeps cool in the doorway of a shop. The dog has its own ammenities.
This weekend a hug fest awaits the thousands of people coming to the Village Hospital Greer Family Fest.
Greer Station merchants are embracing this weekend’s festival with staff tripled the size of a normal weekend, merchandise stockpiled fourfold and restaurants preparing buffet-quantity food for thousands of customers.
“We love the Family Fest and are looking forward to it,” Shara Fordyce, manager of Acme General Store, said. “We only had a quarter of what we have plus the entire upstairs is open.” Fordyce said she has about a dozen people working this weekend plus friends of friends.
Lucinda Rivera, co-owner of Rivera’s, said the restaurant expects to do as well as last year. “We do a good business and we will see new customers come through. It will be a good weekend,” Rivera said.
It hasn’t been that long that Greer Station merchants embraced festival weekend. The festival had its vendors shoulder to shoulder in front of the merchants and restaurants with little regard to merchants’ concerns. That has changed to where the main food vendors are now located on the promenade at City Park. Vendors are being reminded this year to keep the wider pathways between their locations open for customer traffic.
The result has been new businesses like The Stomping Grounds preparing for a big turnout outside as well as inside its popular coffee and wine store. Ami Brown and Laci Barber were preparing food for the biggest crowd of their half-year of business. Brown said they were preparing food for an extra 200 customers outside the coffee house and at least 800 Saturday.
Wanda Garcia, manager of The Shoppes at The Grapevine said, “Most of the boutique owners are planning to be here all weekend and have brought in extra merchandise,” Garcia said.
When The Shoppes had its grand opening earlier this year, they had an overflow crowd that settled onto Trade Street and they ran out of paper products midway during the event.
Denise VandenBerghe, who owns Wild Ace Pizza and Pub, said the outdoor eating area will help with the overflow the popular pizza and sub sandwich shop expects. It has stocked extra beverages for the anticipated crowds.
Aaron Tippin’s performance at 8 p.m. Saturday is expected to jam Greer City Park. “We’re expecting the biggest crowd every for a Family Fest,” Allen Smith, Greer Chamber of Commerce President/CEO said.