If you haven’t discovered Rabbit Creek Market, this would be a good time to visit the shop, with sprawling showrooms featuring about 75 vendors selling antiques, vintage and hand-crafted items, furnishings, collectibles, signs, clothing, vinyl records along with a variety of food items and snacks.
Catch the Bread Man, known from the Downtown Market, here on Saturdays. You’ll also find homemade treats from jellies and jams from Marie’s Jelly Jams & Herbs. Rose Marie Garrison also sells her homemade products at the Frenchtown Farmers’ Market.
The shop just keeps getting better and bigger, not in size since it’s already 15,000 square feet, but nearly doubling its list of vendors since Rabbit Creek, located on Capital Circle, opened Nov. 1.
The shop was actually inspired by the entrepreneurial vision of Ethan Miller, 11.
“He wanted to have a business and he kept asking me about it,” said his mom, Renee Miller, owner of Rabbit Creek Market.
Miller is also the executive director of City Walk Urban Mission, which “works with the homeless, ex-offenders, families and individuals in crisis.”
She and her husband founded the mission, which oversees transitional housing, a work and re-entry program, food distribution, crisis intervention and pastoral care. The mission’s thrift shop is also its chief source of funding.
Eager to encourage her son, over the summer, Ethan and Renee watched YouTube videos, got some paint and sold some items at the fairgrounds.
“We spent a lot of time making stuff and I wanted to put it somewhere,” said Miller, mother of seven children ranging from 6 to 27. “I thought maybe we could put it in a section of a market but I looked and I couldn’t find anything local like this.”
So she and her son launched Rabbit Creek Market, but that wasn’t all for the Millers.
Son Mason, 9, wanted to launch a line called Mason’s Marmalades, so now those jars are now on the shelves at Rabbit Creek Market, along with Mason’s brands of salsas, pepper jellies and sweet spreads. .
“We’ve been selling the mess out of Mason’s Marmalades,” said Renee,
Now Kimberly, 6, said she will be offering a line of clothes called Kimberoos.
“The mascot will be a kangaroo holding the sign Kimberoos,” Kimberly told me while I was visiting the store.
I also met Liconya Gilbert, who owns the Tallahassee company, Cupcake Array, and bought a mix to make Snickerdoodle cookies and some edible cookie decorations. Saadiq Khali offers vegan cookies and brownies and gluten-free cookies from his local Plant Bass Foods. Kristen Minnich, who runs Rustic Creations Art and Dragonfly Farm with Angie Dean, just started selling products at Rabbit Creek Market. They have a lot of botanical products, flavored vinegars and finishing salt and sugar.
Other treats include BNutty gourmet peanut butter, fudge, Smores chocolate bars, oils, vinegars, spices and sugar, baked goods, items from RedEye Coffee and lots more.
I expect we’ll see an increasing number of local vendors represented at the market. The place looks especially festive with Christmas decorations but it’s a fun place to shop any time of the year.
Rabbit Creek Market is at 2811 Capital Circle NE; 850-765-5146.https://www.rabbitcreekmarket.com/ Open 10 to 6 p.m. Monday to Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. Sunday. Open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Christmas Eve; closed Christmas and New Year’s Day.
