Smithville Businesses Ramp Up for MayFest

Storeowners in Historic Smithville Village are bracing for this coming weekend.  

Spanning from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, the festival is one of the biggest celebrations on the Village calendar.

For some shops, days of preparation go into the weekend’s festivities. Many owners supplement their offerings with new products, food and live music.

“[Mayfest is] really the start of our whole season,” explained storeowner Kelly Coleman who, in addition to restocking her entire store, Ireland and Old Lace, arranged to have country singer Sherry Lynn of Gloucester County perform outside on Sunday.

With so much traffic coming through the village over the course of the two-day festival, many storeowners need ancillary support.

“We need all hands on deck,” said Michael Spagnola, the co-owner of Underground, a punk rock oriented boutique.  “We try to make Mayfest a party.”

While Mayfest may be famous for many reasons, the biggest attraction, according to shop owners is the food.

Mayfest is known for being able to bring about any sort of food “on a stick” says Coleman, including fried Oreos.

“The food really makes it fun,” agreed Spagnola.

For shops like Magnifico’s Say Cheese—which specializes in gourmet cheeses— Mayfest is a great opportunity to showcase their food offerings.

Galloway resident Carol Allgyer, a close friend of Magnifco’s storeowners Michael Magnifico and Bob Gaw, said she’s been helping prepare cheese samples for the big weekend.

With a myriad of different cheeses, making enough samples for an event like Mayfest is no easy task, says Allgyer.

“There’s a lot of prep hours that go into Mayfest in the days preceeding [it],” she said. “All of our spread cheese needs to be scooped; literally hundreds of our own recipes.”

While Mayfest can be a stressful time for everyone in business on the Village Greene, what many storeowners fear the most is bad weather.

“We just hope the weather is with us,” Allgyer said. “That means a lot.”

“We’re all crossing our fingers about the weather,” Coleman agreed.  “That’s… the most important thing.”