AUSTINTOWN — Austintown Farmers Market vendor Michelle Santantonio, who sells skin care products as Lucky Suds, LLC, said the experience of a drive-thru farmers market is “odd.”

“I don’t know how else to explain it,” Santantonio said. “With skin care, people want to try the lotion, smell everything. It’s difficult to sell without being allowed to give samples.”

Monday evening, the Austintown Farmers Market had its inaugural run as a drive-thru, and it will be operating as such indefinitely in order help minimize person to person contact and slow the spread of COVID-19.

Georgia Kirby of Milton, a regular customer of the farmers market, said converting the market to a drive-thru was an “intuitive” move.

“It’s good to try something to get it started,” Kirby said. She was shopping from her car as she drove by booths, though pre-ordering is an option with most vendors.

Kirby said she encourages everyone to come to the farmers market, though the experience may be a little different than traditional walk-up, open-air markets.

“You miss some of the relationships when you’re driving,” Kirby said.

Still, for some vendors, the switch to drive thru has brought positive changes.

Joe Wright of Ravenna-based Write Family Farms said he’s done “a little better” at the few drive-thru markets he’s attended than he did at regular markets this time last year — he said the drive-thru style means cars waiting behind others making purchases have to stop and look at the booths next to them.

“It’s new to us,” Wright said. “It seems to be good for us. It really does help a lot of vendors when someone is forced to sit there and look at the booths.”

He said pre-ordering has also helped with sales, as people feel comfortable with the low- or no-contact purchasing.

Vendor Raquel Scheetz of Salem, who sells various types of vegetable plants though her booth, Redefine the Vine, said she took close to 25 online orders before the Austintown market.

With the many types of plants she sells, she said its easier for customers to pre-order because it’s hard to browse from cars.

“Right now I have 122 kinds of tomatoes,” Scheetz said. “For (customers) to look through them at a drive-thru market is too difficult.”

Scheetz attributed her high number of pre-orders to market manager Shannon Lehn’s promotion skills.

With dozens of cars backed up waiting to get into the market and more people still coming an hour in, Lehn was pleased with the first attempt at the drive thru.

“I think its amazing,” Lehn said. “We have the best people. The community supports us so well. The community has always been supportive of us. They look forward to this.”

She said the benefit of the market is that customers know exactly where their food is coming from, and can ask local farmers questions — plus, it cuts out processing plants.

“There is no meat shortage if you buy local,” Lehn said.

Customer Fawnda Barkur, who regularly drives from Niles to come to the Austintown market and visit family in the area, said she thought the drive-thru system was working well. She is looking forward to more markets.

“They do this all summer,” Barkur said. “This is my favorite thing.”