As children, they watched their grandparents sell produce out of puestos, or stalls, under the metal roof of Haymarket Plaza, an open-air produce market at Historic Market Square.
They watched their parents take on the family business and eventually they did, too.
Today, at least six families of the original group that held puestos at San Antonio’s revered market before its 1976 redevelopment still run businesses there generations later.
But those vendors — many of them children and grandchildren of original shop owners — aren’t sure if the next generation will carry on the businesses their predecessors worked so hard to build.
Without them, they worry that a slice of San Antonio’s culture may be slipping away.
“We have aging business owners, and they’re aging out of the business. We’re looking to make sure this Market Square doesn’t disappear,” said Yvette Ramirez, a third-generation vendor and president of the Farmer’s Market Tenant Association. “The only way we can [keep it going] is to find someone that has the same dream my parents had, [and not] just to make ends meet.”
The city-owned Farmer’s Market Plaza building has 53 small business vendors, and El Mercado has another 32, according to San Antonio’s Center City Development & Operations Department, which oversees Historic Market Square. On the outdoor plaza, up to 24 working artisans and 13 food vendors hold puestos.
Michael Douglas, owner of Martin’s Curios inside the Farmer’s Market Plaza building, runs the same puesto his father had before him — alone, because his siblings weren’t interested, he said. He doesn’t have children yet, but hopes to someday, and that they’ll be interested in being a vendor at Market Square.
“We’ve been here for 50-plus years, so I’d hope it’d keep going,” Douglas said. “We’re just kind of in a little hiccup with all this construction going on.”
Douglas and other business owners said the construction efforts to renovate the market sidewalks have affected business lately, but construction is slated for completion near the end of 2025.
Like other vendors, Douglas is holding out for the promise of more foot traffic from locals and tourists as a result of UTSA’s expanding downtown campus and San Pedro Creek’s redevelopment.
But as they eye the market’s future from the puestos they’ve held for nearly 50 years, the original vendors know that ultimately it will be left up to the next generation.
A vibrant history
Historic Market Square has been in the heart of San Antonio since the 1890s and is one the largest Mexican markets in the country, said Kelly Saunders, spokesperson for the Center City Development department. The colorful and vibrant year-round market sits 859 miles north of Mexico City and 156 miles from the Mexican border town of Laredo, and is a center of celebration for holidays and events like Cinco de Mayo, Día de los Muertos and Fiesta.
“There’s nothing like this. We’re one of the largest Mexican markets in the United States,” Saunders said. “We’re home to businesses that have been carried on by generations. You have la familia Cortez, and then you have tenants inside the Farmers Market and El Mercado building that have grown up within Market Square all their lives.”
In the book Images of America: San Antonio’s Historic Market Square, Edna Campos Gravenhorst writes that early-rising farmers and produce vendors got strong cups of coffee at Mi Tierra restaurant, which opened in 1941.
Along with the original vendors, the Cortez family, which owns Mi Tierra, has been instrumental in preserving Market Square’s authenticity.
“Market Square has a historical significance to the city and to the community members here,” said Amanda Reyna, administrator of Historic Market Square. Her grandfather played the accordion there decades ago.
According to Visit San Antonio, more than 1.8 million people visited Historic Market Square between August 2022 and July 2023. In March and April alone, more than 600,000 people typically visit for Fiesta events.
While Market Square’s economic impact is not tracked by the city as a whole, San Antonio’s hospitality industry generated $19 billion in 2022.
The original businesses, managed by the family’s second and third generations, have kept their highly competitive and hard-to-get puestos because they have the same entrepreneurial dream as their parents and their grandparents.
The rate to have a puesto at the market hasn’t changed too much over the years, vendors say, but they wouldn’t give specifics.
Vendors can only get a puesto when the city issues a request for proposal for one or through a lease reassignment. Saunders said the last time the city issued an RFP for Market Square was several years ago, and there are no plans to issue one soon. The city added that those interested in a vendor spot on the plaza can contact Market Square staff.
Ultimately, City Council approves each lease.
Changing with the times
In the 1950s, Douglas’s grandfather sold strawberries and watermelons he grew in Poteet out of a stall at an open-air farmer’s market in San Antonio. By the ’70s, his dad, Martin Douglas, ran Martin’s Produce in the Farmer’s Market Plaza, after the Haymarket Plaza became an enclosed and air-conditioned building.
Today, his son sells metal yard art and signs out of his puesto, and nothing costs more than $100, he said.
The transition from produce to art was a necessary one, original vendors said.
As chain grocery stores pulled customers away from buying produce at Market Square, they needed to adapt. Vendors brought in handmade goods uniquely made and sourced from Mexico little by little, adding hats, belts and handmade cookware over time.
Jaime Herrejon, 67, co-owner of Little Mexico Imports, watched his father sell produce at the Haymarket Plaza from 1962 to 1966, when the family added Mexican arts and crafts like bean pots and drinking vessels to their wares.
“Just about everything here is handmade. If they use a sewing machine, it’s an old sewing machine,” Herrejon said.
As a child, he joined his mother in buying handmade items directly from Mexican artisans to sell in San Antonio. Now, vendors from Mexico visit Market Square with their products about once a month to sell to interested local vendors.
Standing at the counter of Little Mexico Imports in the same 998-square-foot puesto his family has held since 1976, Herrejon remembered the days he began working in the business at only 8 years old.
He chose the same path as an adult, when he declined a scholarship to go to college, instead choosing to take over the family’s puesto. Herrejon said he doesn’t regret it because it provided for his family and then some, which is all he asked for.
“I definitely wanted to [carry on the business],” Jaime Herrejon said, adding that two grandkids, ages 17 and 23, are interested in the family business. “I’m 67 years old. I’m thinking about retiring maybe in five years. I’m not going to be one that stays here until they pass on.”
Carlos Herrejon, Jaime’s brother, runs another puesto just a few steps away: Old Mexico Imports, selling similar items to those found at Little Mexico Imports. Other items sold at the stalls come from Mexico, Ecuador, Peru and Guatemala — just like his father sold decades before him.
“It’s so important that history continues on within our children, even if they don’t take over the business,” said Ramirez, whose grandfather sold produce from the Haymarket Plaza to rural South Texas towns.
Her parents, Deanna and Louis Ramirez, sold wooden roses handmade in Mexico from different puestos until they opened the Market General Store in 1986; it’s still open today.
Now 63-year-old Ramirez owns Tejano Lou’s and Paloma Boutique inside the Farmer’s Market Plaza building. She asked her 25-year-old daughter to help her run the family business, but it’s not her thing.
“I’ve been more open to allowing my daughter to search her path. More than likely it’s in business as well, and that’s OK with me. Even though as parents, you want them to run your business and take over, but …,” she said, trailing off.
If her daughter doesn’t take over, Ramirez will likely find a family member she can trust to sell the businesses to who will carry on their legacy.
“Hispanic people never give up. Luchan for everything they have. And they’re constantly making sure their kids have a little more than what they had,” Ramirez said. “That’s just growing up in a Hispanic family.”
This story has been updated with additional information from the city.
