Stephen Montoya
Shannon Houchin and her son Finn Canard are excited about their new spot at La Pulga.
The remnants of a heavy party can still be seen under the awning at La Pulga, an open-air market considered one of the oldest in Fort Worth at 960 N University Drive, Monday morning. On the opposite side of a fence used as an entry way for Sunday night party attendees, is a sleepy mercado, adjacent to the central hub of the party area.
A light bustle can be seen coming from behind one of the front buildings, which is now home to the popular produce business known as the Roadside Stand Farmer's Market. Since 2013, Shannon Houchin, along with her son, Finn Canard, have made a name for themselves by searching for and selling the best produce the Lone Star State has to offer. And for many years, up until a month ago, this mother and son duo have been at it while staying constantly on the move.
Originally, Houchin and Finn started selling fresh peaches exclusively at local farmer’s markets, moving to various spots throughout the week in their small red and white trailer. The only problem with this is that the Roadside Stand's core clientele wouldn’t always be able to find where the duo set up shop around the city. Another aspect that made for a challenge was learning the picking schedule for many of the fruits and vegetables around the state that Houchin’s customers couldn’t get enough of.
“I try to stay as local as I can – like north Texas – but we don't have that many small mom and pop farms here anymore,” she says. “I mean, there are some, and I'm not talking about backyard growers, right? I'm talking mom and pop farms that have a substantial harvest.”
Houchin verified that Texas has various growing regions that span across the state, where other produce grows almost year-long. For example, the last week of October was the first week of the Texas Naval Orange harvest, which is something the Roadside Stand prides itself on knowing. This means Houchin and Finn travel further out to glean what they can in the form of fresh produce when in season.
“We specialize in Texas produce at large because we can extend our season to 10 months rather than just four,” she says. “We’ll go all the way out to West Texas. We go out past Midland, Odessa, to Coyanosa to the Mandujano Brothers, they're the last farm in the entire state that grows the Pecos cantaloupe. And that is an old school heirloom cantaloupe. And people here go insane for it, but nobody grows it here. We go all over the place, and it's taken me 10 years to know where these places are.”
Stephen Montoya
For just a little over a year now, Houchin has gone all in on the Roadside Stand, putting her PR work, which was front-in-center, off to the side. In fact, Houchin has a master’s degree in information sciences and was the chief operating officer for a software company she ran with her family. Houchin also has a background in real estate and journalism, which she’s uses to her full capacity building up her own business venture online and by word of mouth. Houchin and Finn are also a aprt of the Roadside Republic initiative, which consists of a startup blue print that guarantees a successful first week of roadside business.
Trading places with her responsibilities was what inspired Houchin to jump into the produce business in the first place; something that seemed to scream at her during the COVID shutdown of 2020.
“I had a friend who grew up in South Carolina, around peach orchards, who was able to turn his side hustle of selling peaches on the roadside into a lucrative business,” she says. “He told me, ‘Shannon, this is a great way to make a living, and it's really fun. You get to be with your kids all the time because your kids can work the peach stands with you.’”
Taking from her mentor’s advice, Houchin enlisted the help of her then teenage son now 22, Finn, to help her build the Roadside Stand from scratch in 2013. The duo seemed poised to get started after helping Houchin’s mentor build and run 100 peach stands in one summer. Another aspect of the Roadside Stand that leaves its customers happy is the fact that none of the produce sold at this stand has been refrigerated. The fruits and veggies here all ripen naturally.
“That's part of the romance, and part of the nostalgia is we don't refrigerate our products,” Houchin says. “Everything will be very aromatic. Like you walk up during peach season, and you will smell the peaches, you'll actually physically smell the cantaloupe as well. We never refrigerate.”
All of this info and produce talk have become a part of this team, so much so that is it has become an oppurtunity that Finn is interested in continuing. Already in his senior year at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he studies logistics, Finn says he can see himself staying involved in the family business, now that most of the groundwork is done.
“It's been a lot of fun, and I like doing it,” Finn says. “I like being able to set my own schedule and meet all these new people.”
The new people Finn is talking about aren’t just walk-up customers either. Besides offering locals fresh fruit and vegetables, the Roadside Stand also delivers fresh produce orders to your home just like Domino’s Pizza. This is done through the Roadside Stand's subscription program that makes home deliveries twice a week.
“We’ve become a part of many of our customer’s routines,” she says. “Now, they all know us, they know about our lives and we theirs. Finn is always ready with a joke to break the ice as well.”
Working remotely on his last few college credits before graduation, Finn is in the unusual spot of being home to prep for the next season of business.
“Usually, I get back from school after the season has already ended, but this year we’re going to have a couple months leading up to next season to really prepare for it and hit it the right way,” he says.
And prep this duo shall.
Besides looking ahead to their upcoming 2025 produce season, both Houchin and Finn are also readying up their new storefront for business.
“We just unloaded some storage units, started moving some stuff here, and then we’re trying to figure out how do we want to get this laid out,” Houchin says while surveying her new digs. “We are just trying to decide how we want to set the outside up so people can have lots of outdoor shopping.”
The small brown building that houses the Roadside Stand is a blank slate, already starting to take form with the small items this mother and son team have brought in over the past few weeks.
“The beauty of what we do and why so many people in Fort Worth love us is because we buy direct from orchards, farms, and growers,” Houchin says. “We look for the best produce, so you can enjoy the best nature has to offer.”
