The Worcester Public Market slated to open this fall in Kelley Square will feature the second location of the Worcester-centric store for clothing, gifts and souvenirs, Worcester Wares.
Worcester Wares has been located inside the DCU Center since its 2015 opening, selling shirts, stickers, candles, coasters, keychains and other accessories, with just about everything featuring Worcester’s name or a reference to it, with licensed designs from local artists.
Worcester Wares will now be a tenant in the Worcester Public Market, according to developer Allen Fletcher. The market will be anchored by a 3,000-square-foot Wachusett Brewing Company taproom that will feature a bar fashioned out of an old Airstream trailer, as Wachusett has at its Westminster taproom, and beers brewed only at that location.
Other tenants are slated to include an outpost of Jennifer Lee’s, a vegan and allergy-free bakery in Boston, as well as vendors selling Vietnamese, Mexican, ice cream and pasta, along with a deli, and potentially seafood.
The market, the first of its kind in Worcester, will open in the ground floor of Kelley Square Lofts, a 48-unit development. Tenants are slated to move in beginning Sept. 1.
Jessica Walsh, the founder and owner of Worcester Wares, said she wasn’t looking for a second location until Fletcher approached her.
“I never thought about having a first location,” she laughed. “The second location was something that found me,” she added.
The Worcester Public Market location of Worcester Wares is likely to include more gifts and less apparel, Walsh said, and could include items for adjacent towns, not only Worcester. But that process will be more thought-out than simply putting Shrewsbury on a T-shirt for example, she said.
Walsh, who came to Worcester from Boston in 2007, said Worcester Wares — a shop that relies exclusively on Worcester pride — was laughed at by some at first, but has since found a niche. Some customers, Walsh said, have even asked with a worried tone about whether the store will sell Boston items. It won’t.
“Part of Worcester Wares’ appeal is that it’s Worcester’s,” she said.
