Among Aromas’s rolling pastures and hills studded with oak trees, 17 miles north of Salinas off Highway 101, it looms into view: A longtime landmark brandishing clean lettering in some Western typeface that reads: Disneyana, Flea Market, Antique Shops, BBQ, Food.
But we know it as the Big Red Barn.
Big is accurate. Aircraft hangar big. Roadside attraction big. It houses a replica of a small, quaint, Old West town. The stores in the interior are mostly deserted – sparrows chirp and flitter in the rafters – but the pristine collectibles toy store is holding up nicely, as is the antique store that runs the entire length. The barn sits in eerie calm Wednesday through Saturday, surrounded by its spacious concourse.
But life arrives on Sunday, outside the hulking building.
That’s flea market day. Suddenly, the Big Red Barn is a colorful, archaic, schizophrenic village made up of vendor booths lashed to vans and trailers with rope and clips. Event tents and canopies press shoulder-to-shoulder. On the outskirts, wares splay out yard sale-like on tarps on the ground.
Stacks of straw cowboy hats sit across from crisp rows of baseball caps; bins of splashy, packaged Mexican candy compete with radiantly colored chiles and citrus; racks of Niko hoodies and Kenpo sweaters lure onlookers from mounds of rumpled $1 and $2 clothes; Hot Topic-esque black tees printed with bands like Iron Maiden and Muerte do battle with porcelain figures of Santo Niño and Jesus; traditional ranchera music is consumed by slick reggaeton a few paces away.
Yes, this is Monterey County, albeit its most northeast outpost. And no, it doesn’t happen anywhere else therein.
The residents of this transitory village might be struggling, but the energy of commerce vibrates in the air. Crinkly dollar bills change hands. Vendors send their kids to the office to pay the day’s fees. Families burdened with shopping bags leisurely stroll around, their kids gripping churros and tamarind juice.
Ken McPhail has co-owned the Big Red Barn for 15 years. He navigates a golf cart along the crooked, crowded lanes of the bustling market as shoppers criss-cross. Warm, bouncy mariachi music pumps through the air.
“This is a Mexican flea market,” he says. “It’s their mall. But we’ve got Arabs, Italians, Koreans.”
A shirtless man holding a Corona approaches the golf cart and asks, “Where are the lizards, my friend?”
“The who?” says McPhail.
“The guy with the iguanas and blue tails and… flying dragons.”
McPhail is blunt: “I don’t know.” The shirtless man thanks him and wanders off.
“We’re one of two places in California – us and Disneyland – where you can drink all over the property,” says McPhail. Co-owner Fran Ellingwood bought the place 40 years ago and converted the one-time hay storage barn (for the cavalry on Fort Ord) into the flea market.
“She’s the brains behind the operation,” McPhail says. “I handle legal stuff, the problems, the bureaucrats.
McPhail claims several hundred licensed vendors – like Gloria, who remembers how long she’s been selling at the Big Red Barn by her daughter’s age.
“Maggie’s 17… so 19 years,” she says, surrounded by tools and hardware under her canopy. “She grew up here.” Times are slow, she says, foreshadowing what nearly a dozen other vendors will say. Her son, handicapped and confined to a wheelchair, struggles to peer at her as she talks.
The hip-hop/dance mash-up of Girl Talk bumps out of nearby speakers; the air smells of roasted peanuts. A 3-year-old boy lags behind his family, freshly forgotten tears streaked down his face, eyes engaged by the sights.
Enrique Ruiz has sold at the Big Red Barn flea market for 15 years. His canopied slot is crammed with toys and kitchen equipment, including massive, quince-worthy 20-gallon pots.
“The best time of the year is supposed to be between April and October,” he says, “when there’s more people in Salinas Valley.”
But not this year. When asked when was the best time, he replies, “The last 14 years.
“But we have to keep coming because you don’t know. Can be OK. Can be not.”
Families abound. Abuelas y tios y niños y madres y padres. Up to three generations of a family run vendor booths. Children have grown up with the Sunday flea market; they translate for the older generation.
Monica Zamudio, 17, translates for her father Manuel, a weathered, jovial man who sells dried chiles and jamaica flowers, pistachios and tangerines that come from Mexico and Morgan Hill. He cracks jokes in Spanish that tickle him merrily but she’s hesitant to interpret.
As Shaggy’s ode to infidelity, “It Wasn’t Me,” blares from a music vendor’s speakers, a little girl, maybe 4, pushes a toddler in a stroller like she’s steering a racecar.
Miguel Esquivel is 20 years old. He started selling backpacks, sunglasses, razor scooters and shoes at the flea market six years ago to raise money to attend Hartnell College.
Business was alright, he says, “until the crisis.
“[Now] people may come to just walk around,” he says. “Maybe they’re out of work.”
Manuel Vasquez, 21, speaks in a crisp, Cali-Mex manner about his cashews and peanuts coated in chile powder, about the candy store his family owns in Castroville, La Perla Tapatia. He explains that Tapatia refers to “the biggest, richest city in Mexico.”
“I come for the ladies,” he admits.
Business has slowed for him too, but he’s resilient: “We’re still standing.”
Although neither McPhail nor Ellingwood speak Spanish, they oversee an operation that has become a local institution of Mexican culture.
“We just set up the structure,” says McPhail. “They make it. Without them we’d be sitting on a dirt piece of ground.”