Main Squeeze Brings Fresh Lemonade to Dearborn Farmers Market

What’s better than a glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade on a hot summer day? This Friday, The Main Squeeze is hoping visitors will answer: lemonade with strawberries in it.

The Farmington-based lemonade stand–born out of the family-owned Destiny Catering–will be making its first of many appearances at Dearborn’s market this week. And head chef and owner of the catering company Randy Hall says he’s sure Dearborners will be impressed.

“I love the idea, as a chef, of everything being fresh–doing everything in front of the customers in the market,” he says. “Seeing me take a whole lemon and then wedge it and smash it … it’s something you see me do right in front of you.”

The Main Squeeze just started its foray into farmers markets with the Saturday Farmington Farmers and Artisans Market in May. Dearborn is the second market they’re venturing into. It was a perfect fit for Hall and his wife and three adult daughters: all four help out with the lemonade stand, and all four are natives of downriver.

“My daughters and I all graduated from Lincoln Park high, so I was born and raised down there. And my wife is from Melvindale,” said Hall, who also went to . “We’ve got a home (in Farmington) now, but our home home is always downriver.”

So when someone mentioned to Hall that there are no lemonade or fresh drink vendors at Dearborn’s market, he jumped at the chance.

“I love the area, I love the part of town where the market’s at, and I love Dearborn–period,” he said. “So really, it’s an easy hook for me to say, ‘Let’s go back down home.’ We went down there, toured the market and we thought it had a nice feel to it.”

This week–and many more to come throughout the season, Hall promises–the market will have a sweet and tangy feel to it as he and his family shake things up in Dearborn–literally.

The ingredients in Hall’s lemonade are lemons, water and sugar. Mashed, fresh strawberries are optional–but highly encouraged. Everything is served shaken, not stirred, and made-to-order: less sugar, no sugar, more lemon, less strawberries.

However customers like it, The Main Squeeze does it. And if business in Farmington has been any indication, they’re doing something right.

The payoff is big for Hall, too, both in the extra business he gets for Destiny Catering, and the friends he makes.

“We’re gregarious people, so we like actually meeting people, making friends with the vendors, and within a couple of weeks, finding regulars who keep coming back to the booth,” he said. “It’s just amazing to me.”

Main Squeeze is also a regular at the Farmington Farmers and Artisans Market, held Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the on Grand River in downtown Farmington.