New Flea Market Opening April 11
By Chris Seymour | Correspondent at April 3, 2024 | 8:00 am | Print
A weekend-only flea market—at the site of the former Mitch’s Place at 227 Main St. is set to open next Saturday, April 11.
Featuring free admission, the New Britain Indoor Flea Market will include dozens of vendors operating from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sundays, according to Hazel Lichatz, who owns the building with her husband Mitch (who put the “Mitch” in Mitch’s Place).
“We have right now about 40 vendors who are already confirmed and they’re going to have anything from collectibles to tools to clothing to toys to homemade items and we have an airbrusher,” she said. “So it’s a very big, vast variety of merchandise that will be sold,” added Lichatz of the flea market, which has the ability to house upwards of 100 vendors.
“We wanted to do something, one, to have something in the building, but we wanted to put something different in that would better New Britain and bring more people in,” said Lichatz, who noted that the recent opening of the CTfastrak rapid bus transportation system was a big factor in opening a flea market.
“The amount of people who can come from Hartford and all over on that would really bring something I think to downtown New Britain,” she observed.
The new business will initially be called the “New Britain Indoor Flea Market,” but as it expands, the plan is to eventually change the name to the “New Britain Indoor Marketplace.”
“It has more of an appealing name to it,” said Lichatz of the eventual name change. “With ‘flea market’ people will think it’s like a junk store.”
It’s possible the name change could occur before the grand opening on April 11, she added. “We are going to try to do that prior to opening but I am not exactly sure on that yet; I might keep it that name until we fill up the store with vendors,” continued Lichatz, noting about 40 vendors have already signed up to take part.
Located on Main Street since 1994, Mitch’s Place was forced to close last July following issues with its supplier, according to Lichatz.
“We lost our contract through our supplier and we were just at the point after losing the contract where buying merchandise would have been so expensive to be able to sell it at the rate that we were doing at that current time,” she said. “And you don’t want to raise prices in this day and age with the way the economy is, so it just didn’t seem possible to try and make it work out.”
Lichatz encouraged those in the community to check out the flea market, stressing there will be something for everyone.
“I think it’s going to be such an enormous amount of different merchandise that I think that everybody can find something there,” she said. “There are so many different vendors with so many different things and I think if people stopped in and checked it out, they would find something they would either want to buy or look for.”
For more information on the market, check out its Facebook page, which can be found by searching for “New Britain Indoor Marketplace.” Vendors interested in taking part may call Lichatz at 860-906-7866.
