Returning to South of the James

***UPDATE: We are NOT doing any in person markets or craft shows until Covid-19 has passed. We are maintaining the free shipping on orders $30+ for the foreseeable future.***

We had a bit of a false start earlier this month. We had decided to return to the drive-through/preorder portion of the South of the James Farmers Market the first weekend of June. After a week of constant promotion we hadn’t made enough sales to cover the cost of the market and made the decision to mail out the orders that we had received rather than attending the market. It seemed like this was the case across the board and SOJ recently made the decision to shorten the length of the drive-through at the request of vendors. At the time we were not yet ready to return to the walk-through portion so we decided to step back until we were ready to return to the market as a whole. We spent the last few weeks watching the numbers trend down in Virginia and thought it might be a good time to return before we potentially saw another spike, so we made the decision to return to the full market next weekend (June 27th). If the time of Covid has taught us anything it’s that you can’t plan too far into the future, and because of this we are just taking our schedule for the market week by week. If we see the numbers spike or we feel the mask and distance rules are not taken seriously enough we will step back and reassess. We may be there a week, we may be back for good… at this point we are taking it week by week and trying to make the best decision for our family and business.

How this will work…

South of the James at Bryan Park (note that SOJ is not currently operating at Forest Hill Park)

8am-9am – Drive through and preorder only

9:15-11:45 – Walk through and preorder if you prefer

All customers must wear masks and are not allowed within the vendors’ tents. All vendors will be wearing masks and gloves. We will not be giving change. Credit cards are preferred.

You can place your preorder for both portions of the market in two ways:

• Our website. Use the shipping options “SOJ Pick Up” at check out. Orders must be placed by Midnight on Thursday.
• SOJ’s Pre-order system (order from many of your favorite vendors all in one place) through Lulus. Orders must be placed by Noon on Thursday – https://growrva.luluslocalfood.com/

Since customers are not allowed within the tents we are having to reconfigure our set up and will have to bring less product than normal. If you are looking for specific products we strongly suggest you preorder to make sure you get exactly what you want.

As for the lowered threshold for free shipping, we are still not able to vend at the Charlottesville City Market so it will remain in place. There has actually been discussion about keeping it indefinitely because our customers have been so appreciative. We are mailing out orders placed by 5pm (EST) the next business day, so if you are uncomfortable coming out to the market you can still place your order online and receive your soap quickly.

Thank you again for all of your support during this difficult time.