Twelve hours at the Kitchener Market, from first bread to closing bell

The first bread comes off the truck at 4:40 a.m., and the man carrying it has done so every Saturday since 1998. The Chronicle spent a full market day on the floor, the dock and the mezzanine.

Ninety vendors share one loading dock, a spreadsheet, and an etiquette that nobody has ever written down. The unwritten rules are the story.

By the 2 p.m. bell the hall has served eleven thousand people — a number the city measures by door counters and the vendors measure in sold-out tables.