"This has been an incubator for side hustles and small businesses, a staple in shopping adventures and for better or worse long traffic lines that were part of the experience for so many years."
Robert and Barbara Blanche, who own Rice's Market, wrote that in the social media post announcing that the market on Greenhill Road would close after more than a century, as PhillyVoice reported. The last day is Tuesday, Dec. 29. The headline is the closing, but the more useful fact for anyone in New Hope or Solebury is what the owners stressed themselves. Rice's has been where small businesses got started, and those businesses are heading in different directions. Some will keep going at their own storefronts. Others will become classes and pop-ups. A few will simply stop.
So the market days left are the last time all of them can be found at one address, on a schedule people around here have known for decades.
A century on one farm, with the busy years behind it
The property goes back further than the market. The farm was settled in 1860 by A.L. Rice, who grew produce and raised livestock there before becoming a regional auctioneer, according to PhillyVoice. His family added a sales market in the 1950s, and that market became the main business. The Rice family sold the property in 1982, and the Blanches have run it ever since, upgrading the facilities and adding paths along the way.
The Bucks County Courier Times reported that Rice's began mainly as a produce market and grew into an indoor-outdoor shopping destination that drew more than 8,000 visitors a week, according to the market's website. From the 1980s into the early 2000s, more than 400 vendors filled the barns and lined the grounds each week. They sold clothing, jewelry, home goods, seasonal decor, handcrafted gifts, antiques, produce and plants.
Mike Barnes, who has sold old tools, keys and other antique collectibles there since 1974, described those years to the Courier Times. "The tables were often filled all the way to the tree line. Some people would come on a Monday and camp out overnight to be here in the morning," he said.
Those numbers are the baseline for the closing. The owners pointed to a changing economy, and the market's own farewell post said the market and the economy had both changed over the last few years. Kevin Shattuck, who sells fishing gear, told the Courier Times that vendors and customers had both dwindled in recent years. The same farewell post looked back on "the golden years of before sunrise Tuesdays, Saturdays and the great chaos that was a Black Friday."
The market that remains is smaller than the one in those memories, so fewer vendors are left to find before the last day.
Thirteen market days are left
Rice's says it will be open every Tuesday and Saturday, plus Black Friday, through Dec. 29. From Thursday, Nov. 19, that leaves 13 market days:
- Saturday, Nov. 21
- Tuesday, Nov. 24
- Friday, Nov. 27, Black Friday
- Saturday, Nov. 28
- Tuesday, Dec. 1
- Saturday, Dec. 5
- Tuesday, Dec. 8
- Saturday, Dec. 12
- Tuesday, Dec. 15
- Saturday, Dec. 19
- Tuesday, Dec. 22
- Saturday, Dec. 26
- Tuesday, Dec. 29, the final day
Black Friday is the one that stands apart. It has historically been the market's busiest day of the year, according to PhillyVoice, and the market's own holiday page lists it among the special openings it keeps beyond the regular Tuesdays and Saturdays. This year it lands two days after Thanksgiving week's Tuesday market and the day before a regular Saturday. That gives the market three open days in five, the tightest stretch left on the calendar.
The basics come from the market's FAQ page:
| Detail | What Rice's lists |
|---|---|
| Address | 6326 Greenhill Rd, New Hope, PA 18938. The market notes that it is not in Doylestown. |
| Hours | 7:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, Saturdays and most major holidays |
| Vendor timing | Many vendors finish setting up around 7:30 a.m. and start packing up around 1:00 p.m. |
| Parking | $1, which covers lot direction, security and cleanup |
| Weather | Open rain or shine. Indoor vendors attend even when rain affects the outdoor tables. |
| Morning check | The office at (215) 297-5993 can say how the market looks that day |
The vendor timing matters more than the posted hours. Because tables start packing up around 1:00, a visit that begins late in the morning leaves less shopping time than the 1:30 close suggests. Individual vendor hours also vary, so calling the office before a visit is worthwhile, and more so on a wet December Saturday.
Which tables continue after Dec. 29
Once the market closes, each vendor's plan decides whether you can still find them. Vendors received the news on the morning of Oct. 6, each in a letter from market staff that thanked them for being "an essential piece of what has made Rice's Great for so many years," the Courier Times reported. In that coverage, the vendors who spoke described three different paths.
| Vendor | At Rice's | After Rice's |
|---|---|---|
| Wickey Wackey Wicker World, owner Wanda Detweiler | Wicker goods | Continues at its permanent storefront in Perkasie |
| Supa Thai, chef and owner Supa DeRose | Thai takeout | The takeout ends. Cooking classes and culinary tours continue, with pop-up dinners planned. |
| Sweet Annie, owners June and Charles Brauer | A business June's mother opened about 45 years ago | The owners said they will probably retire when the market closes |
For Wickey Wackey Wicker World, Rice's was one location of a business that already had another. For Supa Thai, the takeout ends with the market. "I'm going to miss this place because it's given me a lot of opportunities," DeRose told the Courier Times, and her next chapter will run through the classes and tours she already offers on Supa Thai's website. Sweet Annie spans two generations at the market. "We have a lot of customers who are regulars and they're like friends," Brauer said.
These three are only the vendors who spoke on the record. Every other table falls somewhere along the same range, and in most cases the only way to find out where is to ask at the table.
The barns are where to start
The market's own advice for planning a visit applies most in its final weeks. The FAQ recommends starting and finishing with the monthly vendors inside the barns. Those indoor tables also stay put in the rain, which matters as the calendar moves deeper into December.
The owners also asked shoppers to keep supporting the businesses Rice's helped start. "Find the local business and buy from them, stop at the farm stand, visit the independent shop, hire the person who turned their hobby into a business," they wrote, as quoted by PhillyVoice. Their statement described vendors who stayed a season and vendors who stayed decades, and some who grew "from a small table or booth here into thriving businesses of their own."
In practice, that means asking about a storefront address, a class schedule, a pop-up list or a social media account before the last Tuesday. Once Dec. 29 has passed, the tables will no longer be together on Greenhill Road, and Saturday mornings will no longer bring everyone back to the same barns. For Barnes, who has been there since 1974, the closing was not something he saw coming. "I thought it would be here forever," he told the Courier Times.
The final market day is Tuesday, Dec. 29, from 7:00 a.m., at 6326 Greenhill Rd.
At The Cliff Lewis Experience, we follow the changes that shape weekends across Bucks County, including the closing of a place like Rice's. If you hear where a favorite vendor is setting up next, we'd be glad to know so we can keep our local guides current. Contact Us.
