Cars lined Irwinton Road on Saturday for C&B Meat Market’s first Spring Festival and Outdoor Market that offered food, entertainment, and local vendors.
Open for three years this February, C&B Meat Market is a family-run business focusing on meat processing and retail. The market is headed by co-owners Marcus Bentley, chief operations manager, and Tony Bentley, chief meat slinger.
Butcher Selection Specialist Brandon Williams planned the event and hopes it will become an annual staple.
“We wanted to bring a little more attention to local vendors, a little more attention to buying local meat and kind of give back and give something for our customers to do. It’s been about two or three months we’ve been planning it and getting vendors involved,” stated Williams.
With 16 vendors at the festival, there was no shortage of things to see, do, and taste, all at the same time.
“We hadn’t really had anything other than our opening day for the store to really shine light on local purchasing of meats and the stuff we carry inside. I reached out to contact people that I am going to talk to today about doing wholesale, like Dippi Dips,” said Williams.
Dippi Dips is one of the vendors that C&B hopes to carry in store. Started by Julie Kelly and Keri Novack, with help from Daniel Kelly, Dippi Dips offers a wide range of dips, including several types of salsa, a cheesecake fruit dip, Mexican corn dip, and many others.
“We went to the papermill market, which was our first event, and we had a lot of great responses. Brandon really liked the mojo dip…so they said, ‘You should come to this,’ and it just started happening,” said Kelly.
Cynthia Harrell and her daughter, Kaylee Moon, attended the market with a tent for The Briary Flower Shop and More with a display full of various kinds of scent diffusers from their store.
Sophie Helms was another vendor who offered baked goods such as sugar cookies and pound cake. She started Sophie’s Sweets after watching and helping her mother make wedding cakes.
Further vendors included The Hat Bar, Southern Dawgs Catering, Yaya’s Heart Crafty Creations, and fresh lemonade stands, along with others.
Musical entertainment was provided by singer/songwriter Dallas Rodgers from Fitzgerald, and a blow-up slide and bouncy castle were there to interest kids.
While it was important to the staff of C&B to promote other local businesses, they also highlighted some of their own in-house products like their sausage and pork belly burnt ends.
“For the first one we’re very pleased with how it’s turned out,” said Williams.
C&B Meat Market is located at 2961 Irwinton Rd. in Milledgeville and is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays.