Town businesses gear up for festive events in Kirkcaldy

Businesses in the east end’s Merchants’ Quarter are coming together once again to organise a festive shopping day on Saturday, November 30 from 10am until 4pm.

While Kangus Coffee House has arranged its annual Christmas Bazaar which is taking place in the Old Kirk on the same day from 11am to 5pm.

It will have various stalls featuring handmade Christmas gifts, jewellery, local chutneys, cards as well as a pop up bar, a DJ, children’s artwork and a kids corner.

In Merchants’ Quarter independent traders are taking part in a free-to-enter Christmas raffle which offers locals the chance to win a Christmas hamper worth a few hundred pounds full of goods donated by the local businesses.

You may also be interested in:

Opening hours cut at Fife swimming pool

Accident closes A911 near Glenrothes

A92 closure planned for roadworks

All shoppers have to do to be in with a chance of winning is to pick up a card from traders in the east end and have it stamped by the 16 participanting shops and hand it into MQ Coffee. The raffle will be drawn at 3.45pm at MQ Coffee.

There will be live music outside KCCVinyl between 11am and 3.30pm featuring compere Retro Nitz Road Show and performances by the Songburds, Uke That, Reasonate, Rebecca Eaves, Nico G and Cornfield Chase.

And this year there will also be street food with Irish and Scottish food provided by Lily’s Larder, wildfire pizza from Tayport, ice-cream, hot waffles and hot chocolate from Carol’s Shop which is based in Elie.

Gail Cadogan, organiser and owner of My Cherry Pie, said: “There are half a dozen new businesses which have opened in the last year in Merchant’s Quarter so this is a good way of not only getting them involved but giving people a chance to visit their shops.

“We decided to hold the Christmas Shopping event again this year because it was so successful last year and because there has been such activity within the year with all these new businesses opening and the strong identity of Merchants Quarter has grown.

“Last year was very successful and we are building on that by doing more live music with a range of musicians and artists performing. We did the event to coincide with Kangus’ bazaar so we could refer people to the other event because there is enough people to go round. Each event we do is getting bigger and better than the one before and more people are getting involved. The traders are also realising the benefits of working together. We want to build on previous success and to show people that Merchants Quarter is growing.”

Dean Penman, owner of MQ Coffee, added: “The coffee shop was absolutely mobbed last year and when we held the summer event we doubled our takings and we were queued out the door.

“These events are well worth doing as well as raising the profile of the area.”

Kirsty Strachan from Kangus Coffee House said: “Last year we held Fife’s first vegan Christmas market and we are planning to hold it every year as it is a great way to make money for charity.

“Last year we raised over £2000 and we split the money between the homeless charity Frontline Fife and the RSPB. The makers we have coming along are all from Fife. This year we are raising money for Tribe Animal Sanctuary Scotland which looks after animals rescued from abuse, neglect or slaughter.

She added: “The market has a really nice atmosphere and we are all really looking forward to it.”