Taste of Veishea vendors feel the weather

By Anthony Capps
Daily Staff Writer

The finals hours of Veishea were slow for some vendors as temperatures fell below freezing and another wet snow fell yet again. By midnight Sunday, the crowd around the Taste of Veishea venues was quite low with only a few vendors having a line with a noticeable wait time.

Will Schroeder, co-owner of Blue-Sky Creamery, said that both the moving of bands off Central Campus and the weather impacted the site of the crowd.

"We have to make adjustments so we have samples," he said. "I think the fact the bands are gone has effected business."

Schroeder said he had sold a pretty good amount of ice cream considering the cold weather —selling ice cream at all in cold weather would be a challenge. However, he was still unsure about returning next year with the even earlier start date in late March.

Justin Hovey, vendor for Smiles Inc., said the crowd was far less this year than last year. He blamed the weather and also the moving of several events off Central Campus. He said there was a definite decrease in numbers of people around the stretch of road where the vendors were lined up.

Kostas Koronakis, owner of Zorba's Greek Food in Chicago, said the lack of business this year was strictly because of the weather and not due to the decrease of entertainment on Central Campus. This is Koronakis's 15th Veishea and he said this year has "the worst weather since [he's] been here." The coordination and set up was just fine, he said.

"Zorba's is and will always be faithful to Veishea. It is one of our favorite events," he said.