Before the intersection of Colorado Boulevard and Eagle Rock Boulevard, in a small tan building with a black-tiled roof, The American Legion, a national veterans association, holds regular meetings for its Eagle Rock chapter. However, every third Friday of the month, the building plays host to the Eagle Rock Night Market, featuring samosas, necklaces, beer and more.
Denise Lorenz-Ching, the event coordinator and organizer, said it has taken time for the market to attract a steady base of vendors and customers.
“In August, we were struggling just to fill this small hall,” Lorenz-Ching said. “I think we put like 15 vendors in here.”
However, since then, Lorenz-Ching said the market, which now takes up the street space and surrounding block in front of the building, is nearly at a surplus for vendors.
“Now we’re at a point where I dealt with 20 vendors the day after the event because they heard about it and everybody wants in,” Lorenz-Ching said.
Event coordinator of The American Legion, Lorenz-Ching said the purpose of the event is to fundraise for the veterans association. Amber Ching, Lorenz-Ching’s daughter, said in addition to raising money for the association, the event increases much-needed awareness of The American Legion’s existence.
“Knowing that [the Eagle Rock Night Market] is here, hopefully that will help more veterans moving forward [with] things like PTSD, things that that they can get help with,” Ching said.
A former street vendor herself, Lorenz-Ching said she makes sure to speak with each vendor before letting them set up their booth, a rare practice for night markets.
“Formats are online, you’re accepted, everything’s online, you don’t ever meet the event coordinator,” Lorenz-Ching said. “I make it a point to speak with every single vendor over the phone.”
Amber Ching is also a vendor at the market. Her booth is called Namaste Fusion LA, where she sells Indian-Mexican fusion food. Ching said the unique community of vendors at the night market is helped in no small part by her mother’s curation.
“My mom doesn’t like to put too many competing vendors together so that the vendors make their money,” Ching said.
According to Ching, her mother’s personal touch when it comes to coordination eases the learning process for newer vendors who are unfamiliar with the night market game.
“I have to say that you make it very comfortable,” Ching said to her mother.
Dustin “Lucky” Cardwell, an Eagle Rock local and former art director in the film industry, sells homemade pickles and jams at the Eagle Rock Night Market under the booth name, Lucky’s Pickle. According to Cardwell, getting into the pickle business was not something he had ever dreamed about accomplishing in life.
“Whenever this whole thing started, it was almost a joke,” Cardwell said.
It began in April 2015, according to Cardwell, in the backroom of Colombo’s Italian Steakhouse and Jazz Club with some friends planning a Mother’s Day sale. Now, Cardwell said, the business is starting to take off.
“I’m developing a website and rebranding my label for FDA compliance,” Cardwell said.
Cardwell said his recipes were originally family inheritances from his grandmother. Over time, Cardwell said he has experimented with the recipes to create distinct flavors.
“What I did is take the traditional pickle-making but then put my own flair on it,” Cardwell said. “It’s very different than what you can find in the grocery stores.”
Now a regular vendor at the market, Cardwell said he got in touch with Lorenz-Ching through a neighborhood connection and that he was initially an alternate.
“I called Denise, and she goes, ‘I don’t know, there’s this one guy at the end of the day, I’m not sure if he’s going to be here or not,’” Cardwell said. “He decided not to come, and that’s how I got out over there, so now I’ve been going there for four months.”
According to Cardwell, the pickle business has helped him grow closer to the community around him.
“I have people at the grocery store, or they see me on the street but in different places, and they’ll say, ‘Hey, do you got any blueberry jam?’” Cardwell said. “‘Hey, you got any dill pickles?’”
Cardwell said the night market has been an unexpected gathering place for Eagle Rock locals.
“It’s so very centric to Eagle Rock right there in that little area that people just walk over,” Cardwell said.
As for Lucky’s Pickle, Cardwell said he is continuing to grow the brand, turning what started as an absurd thought into something real.
“That’s why it’s ‘Lucky’s Pickle,’ because the pickles have a play on words,” Cardwell said. “It’s like ‘Why am I doing this?’ It’s my little conundrum — Lucky’s Pickle.”
Typically, vendors such as Cardwelll are in close competition at night markets, according to Lorenz-Ching, and do not share resources with their fellow vendors.
“In the vendor world, you go, you check in and you’re setting up your booth, and everybody [has] tunnel vision,” Lorenz-Ching said. “That’s the nature of the game, that’s the business and that’s fine.”
Fortunately, Lorenz-Ching said the Eagle Rock Night Market has a uniquely caring community of vendors.
“Our group of vendors is completely different,” Lorenz-Ching said. “I mean, they even help each other. [That’s] far from the norm.”
Contact Noah Kim at nkim4@oxy.edu
