Mountain View Makers Market: Why It Chose Castro Street’s 300 Block

Restaurant tables fill most of the pedestrian mall on Castro Street. This fall the City of Mountain View needed room for a market where local makers could set up without paying for a booth. It chose the 300 block, because that stretch has more space for programming than the blocks where outdoor dining has spread into the street.

A downtown art gallery opened there in August, a formerly vacant building there now has a tenant, and a Hawaiian poke counter made its Bay Area debut there in September. When the Makers Market began on Sept. 18, the 300 block was already becoming the part of downtown where the City and a few independent owners try out uses other than another restaurant.

The block the restaurants left open

The Makers Market is a pilot. Mountain View Voice reported in June that the City offers booth space at no cost. The goal is to let artists and small sellers in who can't afford pricier markets. Amanda Rotella, the City's economic vitality manager, explained the thinking to the Voice:

"We want to create a free, easily accessible, low-barrier opportunity for those 'micro-preneurs' and artists. We also really want to encourage street-level activation in our downtown."

The City was looking for makers of jewelry, ceramics, textiles, clothing, paper goods, fine art, bath and body products, housewares and plants. Vendors based in Mountain View got priority, and applicants from across the Bay Area were also welcome. Before launch, the City contacted nearby businesses, the Downtown Business Association and its own Downtown Committee. Rotella told the Voice the market is meant to get people shopping downtown before they head to restaurants and stores.

The timing is deliberate. "It's right around the happy hour time frame," Rotella told the Voice. "Come shop at the maker's fair, then grab a bite to eat at one of our great restaurants." The market runs in the open street, and dinner happens on the blocks where the tables already are.

Planned for about thirty vendors, opened with more than fifty

In June the City said it was aiming for about 30 vendors, with the final count depending on space and booth sharing. According to the City's October 2026 Downtown Digest, the Sept. 18 debut brought more than 50 local artisans and small businesses to the 300 block, and more than half of them were based in Mountain View. The Digest says visitors came throughout the afternoon and evening, and many vendors reported strong sales and new customers. It does not give an attendance count.

So the first market ran at well over the vendor count the City planned for. The City is no longer accepting new vendors for its fall 2026 dates and directs interested makers to a form for future events. Makers listed on the City's Makers Market page include Blocks that Print Inc., Magic Yarn Garden, Patricia LaFleur Fine Art, UshaDesigns and South Bay Ceramics. The City promotes the Oct. 23 market with 50-plus South Bay artisans, live demonstrations of their work and fresh autumn inventory.

Three dates are left in the pilot, all on the 300 block of Castro Street:

The City's free Community Tree Lighting Celebration is Dec. 7, 5:30 to 8 p.m., at Civic Center Plaza, 500 Castro St., at the far end of the same street.

What already sits on the block

The market moved onto a block that had already started changing.

25 West Gallery, 384 Castro St. opened with a ribbon cutting on Aug. 7. Founder Mishal Junaid and Mayor Emily Ann Ramos cut the ribbon, and the first exhibit was Iranian artist Mohsen Keiany's "Warfare and Festivity," which draws on Persian miniature painting. Mountain View Voice reported that Junaid plans monthly exhibits of local and international artists, plus sketching and "sip and paint" classes priced on a pay-what-you-can basis. Peter Katz, CEO and president of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, told the Voice it is the only dedicated art gallery downtown. Castro Street has had pop-up art spaces and a framing store, but no permanent gallery until now. M. Designs Architects backs the gallery and sits directly next door.

VELUX Experience Center, 312 Castro St. appears in the City's October Digest as a recent addition. It moved into a building that had been vacant.

Ava's Downtown Market, 340 Castro St. is the block's indoor food stop. Palo Alto Online reported that Ry's Poke Shack made its Bay Area debut there on Sept. 3, taking over the space Poke Bar used to occupy. Simply Sabor is also a restaurant tenant inside. According to Mountain View Voice, Ryan and Khannie Ching started Ry's as a food truck on Oahu in 2020.

Crepevine, 300 Castro St. sits at the start of the block.

All four belong to the same story. A gallery, a showroom in a building that sat empty, and a food hall stall all count as street-level activity, the term the City uses for the Makers Market's goal. The pilot puts a monthly crowd on the block where those businesses are trying to take hold.

A Friday on the 300 block, in order

The hours set the order. 25 West Gallery is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. The market runs until 8 p.m. If you arrive after work, the gallery closes first.

1. Before 6 p.m.: Start at 25 West Gallery at 384 Castro, while the doors are still open.
2. Around 5 p.m.: Walk the market booths as the happy-hour crowd arrives, the window Rotella described.
3. After the booths: Stop at Ava's Downtown Market at 340 Castro for Ry's Poke Shack or Simply Sabor, or sit down at Crepevine at 300 Castro.
4. Later: Walk to the blocks where restaurant tables fill the street, which is the evening the City had in mind when it scheduled the market.

On Sundays, the year-round certified farmers market runs 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Downtown Caltrain Station parking lot at 600 W. Evelyn Ave.

Where the experiment came from

The Makers Market is the City's second low-cost attempt this year to bring people back to empty downtown storefronts. Mountain View partnered with MOMENT on a one-year retail pop-up program at 293 Castro St. The first tenant was Don't Eat Me, a shared shop run by four Bay Area artist businesses: Art by Julia, Notebeans Stationery, Derptiles and Karepango. It opened on limited hours the weekend before Christmas and held a grand opening on Feb. 7.

Rotella told Mountain View Voice that vacant storefronts have become much more common since the COVID-19 lockdown. "All of a sudden, almost instantaneously, foot traffic was stripped from downtowns," she said, and online shopping has kept the pressure on small retailers since. The pop-up and the Makers Market use the same approach. Both lower the cost of a first try, one indoors in an empty storefront and the other outdoors in open street.

The street itself is still a work in progress. The Council adopted the Castro Street pedestrian mall ordinance in 2022, covering the stretch from West Evelyn Avenue to California Street. In March 2026 the Council approved a design concept for centralized 21-foot crosswalks and new pedestrian signals at Castro and Villa and at Castro and Dana. The City's September 2026 project update lists that intersection work at 65% design, with completion expected in fall 2028. Bollards and railings still close the street to cars in the meantime. The next Makers Market on the 300 block is Friday, Oct. 23, from 3 to 8 p.m.

Nisha Sharma follows changes like these block by block across Mountain View and the mid-Peninsula, because a new gallery or a busy Friday market shapes how a street feels long before any data shows it. If you'd like to talk about what downtown Mountain View's next few years could mean for your home, request a private consultation and home valuation.