Mercato di Mezzo

The building on Via Clavature has a broad passageway down the middle, while food displays crowd into the deep side recesses. In eighteen seventy-seven, Bologna's first covered market opened here, when trade was being removed from the main square. The name Middle Market came from the old commercial strip between Piazza Maggiore and the market by Porta Ravagnana. After a long break, the building was restored and once again filled with shops selling food and prepared dishes.

The counters along the sides belong to different vendors, while the tables in the passageway are shared. This arrangement emerged after a very literal dispute over a single cash register.

The name of this place is older than the building. Mercato di Mezzo, the Middle Market, was the name for the commercial strip between Piazza Maggiore and the market by Porta Ravagnana. The current building on Via Clavature was set up in eighteen seventy-seven, when municipal officials were removing street stalls from the main square. Bologna's first covered market opened here.

By the end of the twentieth century, about two dozen vendors of meat, vegetables, and other foods remained here. Each made a living from the takings of their own counter. From nineteen ninety-five onward, revenues fell, while the old building needed major work. In two thousand seven, the vendors formed a joint company: they intended to renovate the building and keep the market for themselves. They did not have enough money for such a project. The owners transferred their shares to another company, and in two thousand eight trading ceased. The company created by the vendors remained, but the vendors themselves were no longer under the roof.

Bologna's health authority, which owns the building, began looking for a tenant able to pay for the renovation. In one proposal, all the counters were run through a single payment system: customers would have paid through one cash register. For the city administration, this meant turning the market into a large store with departments. Officials refused to approve such an arrangement and required that many separate retail outlets be preserved.

The consumer cooperative Coop Adriatica took on the project. Its chairman, Adriano Turrini, pressed to open a food center here, where food could both be bought and eaten on the premises. The cooperative invested five million six hundred thousand euros in the work. Under an agreement signed in December two thousand eleven, the architects retained side recesses for separate kiosks and a shared passageway between them.

On April eleventh, two thousand fourteen, the market reopened after a six-year break. In place of the former two dozen vendors, nine new operators moved in: food shops, producers of prepared food, a pizzeria, and a beer hall. Coop, which later became part of the merged cooperative Coop Alleanza, retained management of the building.

This is how the present arrangement of Mercato di Mezzo came about: food is bought from different counters, each vendor handles its own payments, and the tables belong to everyone. The single cash register disputed before the renovation was never installed here.