New Wabash Avenue market in Lafayette, Indiana created out of love for community

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Bob Corbin cares about and loves Wabash Avenue, one of Lafayette’s oldest communities.

You can see that love in the smile that emerges on his face whenever he talks about Wabash Avenue.

In recent years, community members banded together to revitalize the neighborhood – opening businesses along the avenue as well as creating giant murals on the walls of buildings up and down the street.

Recently Corbin pondered how he could give back to the community he loves.

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That’s when he considered reopening his indoor farmer's market style store, Corbin's Corner Market on 525 Wabash Ave., which closed in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Instead of focusing on becoming a farmer’s market, Corbin wanted to do more for the community by focusing half of his business on local vendors.  

“I want to bring in local merchandise and give opportunities to local vendors," said Corbin. "I want to provide good, healthy alternatives to the high fructose corn syrup world that we live in. But really, what I want, is when people come here, I want them to have a positive experience beyond it being a merchandising location.”  

As a way to distinguish this new store from his old market, Corbin decided to rename the store The Avenue Market, as a way of highlighting the store's new mission.

Corbin wanted to give local vendors a place where they could reliably sell their products to customers without having to go door to door.

R.J. Honey, Jason Wells Band brand of coffee, Windship Mills hand soap and FatBoy Customs woodwork are a few local vendors that Corbin currently hosts.

“We’re looking to help people with their side hustle and turn it into something that they’re passionate about doing as opposed to going to their 9 to 5 that they have to go to,” said Corbin. 

“That’s the kind of stuff that we want to do. We want to reward people for being good people.”

Corbin hasn’t given up on his dream of opening an indoor farmer’s market on Wabash Avenue.

“Eventually what we want to do is, we want to make it a 365-day a year farmers market. That’s really what we’re looking to do.

“So, if it’s minus 10 (degrees) outside and there are 12 inches of snow on the ground you could still come in and get that feeling of spring and farmer’s market.

“We’re looking on doing some farmers markets down here this summer with Bloomer’s Greenhouse and Dean Fallis. He’s been doing it for 50-plus years. He was actually Joe Rumpza, who started the Lafayette Farmer’s Market. He was his protégé. So, Dean is as good as they get,” he said.

As of now, Corbin plans to host his grand opening for the Avenue Market in early July, but for anyone interested in visiting the store early, Corbin’s Corner Market is open as a way to test the waters.

But beyond the store, Corbin’s true aspiration is to highlight Wabash Avenue. He wants to give folks from Lafayette a reason to visit the community.

“We want Wabash Avenue to become the neighborhood that folks want to visit, if not move to.”

Noe Padilla is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. Email him at Npadilla@jconline.com and follow him on Twitter at 1NoePadilla.