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The Biggest Farmers Markets in
California in 1998
[Current List of Certified Farmers
Markets in California]
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Biggest Farmers Markets in Southern California
| Vista 600 Eucalyptus Ave. Saturday |
The Vista farmers market is a Mecca for aficionados of subtropical fruit – or at least it should be. The California Rare Fruit Growers association got its start in the hill country surrounding this town, 10 miles up the San Luis Rey River valley from Oceanside. It is a region with a myriad of microclimates, dozens of eclectic nurseries, and hundreds of small farmers, many of them adventurous amateurs with acreage in their backyard and a hankering to experiment with oddball crops. This combination of regional attributes is reflected at the market among the 50-75 farmers who gather on a vacant patch of earth near Vista City Hall every Saturday morning. In season, not only will you find guavas, feijoas, sapotes and cherimoyas here – you’ll find several different varieties of each. But come early. The market draws a large number of early-bird senior citizens and they will have walked off with the ripest sapotes by 9:00 a.m. |
| Santa Monica Arizona Ave. at 2nd St. Wednesday |
The Wednesday market in Santa Monica is the workhorse of the megamarkets in California: no crafts, no petting zoos or other children’s events, no regular chef-in-the-market program. Just 75 or more farmers and their produce. Lots and lots of produce filling the better part of five blocks of downtown Santa Monica. Looking around, you might think smoggy, congested L.A. is in the middle of an agricultural paradise – and in fact it is. More than 2,000 farmers are registered to sell directly to consumers in L.A. County, and practically every one of them covets space in this market, one of the top-grossing in the state. Farmers drive four, five or more hours from Fresno County and beyond to get here – and those that don’t have space here wait for years for openings that rarely come. Some of the farms have been represented here for all of the market’s 20 or so years in existence. |
| Hollywood Ivar South of Hollywood Blvd. Sunday |
Part farmers market, part street fair, the market on Sunday in Hollywood reflects a sometimes maligned trend in California farmers markets: letting craft vendors and prepared food sellers set up alongside farmers. The artisans can bring a new crowd -- and more stall fees for the market’s management. But the fear is that the farmers will lose sales and end up playing second fiddle. That hasn’t happened in Hollywood, at least not yet. The farmers market stretches for much of two full city blocks with spaces for around 60 or 70 farmers. The incense vendors and massage booths, street musicians and puppeteers, are part of a vibrant urban backdrop for a bustling farmers market, not the main event. |
| Torrance Charles H. Wilson Park 2200 Crenshaw Blvd. Saturday |
When the City of Torrance first proposed starting a farmers market in 1984, a local newspaper ran a story denouncing the idea as "dangerously close to socialism." The use of a public park for the market is a "colossal mistake," the writer warned. In the 13 years since then, the market has become a prized civic institution and public meeting place. Run by the Department of Parks with the assistance of a large corps of senior-citizen volunteers, it is blessed with an ideal location for a farmers market, a parking lot with plenty of space alongside an attractive, tree-shaded park. About 50 farmers show up, including a strong contingent from the Fallbrook area in northern San Diego County. You’ll also find a handful of actual local farmers, an anomaly for a market in the thick of a megalopolis. Yes there are a few farmers raising commercial crops under power lines and on fertile vacant land between residential areas and refineries and power plants. A smaller version of the market convenes at the same time and place every Tuesday morning. |
| Santa Barbara Santa Barbara St. at Cota St. Saturday |
The microclimates within a short drive of Santa Barbara include prime habitat for everything from bananas, denizens of the steamy tropics, to apples, a fruit of the chilly north. That coupled with the sheer size of this market – which has anywhere from 70 to 100 farmers – probably takes the crown as the market with the widest array of produce of any in the state. The market also has more flower growers than any other in state and lots of heirloom vegetables, with a couple dozen different types of tomatoes on sale at the height of the summer. This market is fairly unique in another respect: it is actually run by the farmers themselves instead of a municipality or a nonprofit market management association. Discriminating consumers who expect to find truly direct-marketed produce at farmers markets owe this market a big debt of gratitude for fighting an expensive legal battle for the right to adopt a rule preventing farmers from selling produce they didn’t grow. (Click here for story about Santa Barbara market’s legal battle.) |
Biggest Farmers Markets in Northern California
| Fresno 100 W. Shaw at Blackstone Saturday |
California’s Central Valley is blanketed with farms producing billions of dollars in crops. But farmers markets are few and far between – and good ones rarer yet. The Vineyard market in Fresno is one of the rare good ones. Most farms in the valley are geared up for major commercial production. To be sure, there are several hundred farmers in the valley who specialize in growing for farmers markets. But they tend to truck their stone fruit and other crops to the much more lucrative markets in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas. The summer heat is another deterrent to valley markets. To cope with that fact of valley life, the Vineyard market is one of the few in the state that is contained in an enclosed structure. It is therefore one of the few markets that can remain open year-round during daylight hours in the blazing hot Central Valley, where 110 degree heat would make quick work of fresh vegetables. |
| San Luis Obispo Higuera Street Thursday |
Every woebegone downtown retail district in the state wants a farmers market like the one staged in San Louis Obispo. Every Thursday evening, a crowded, festive street fair stretches for several blocks, packed with people. The market has brought life back to the streets, customers to surrounding business, it has drawn people out of their cars, infused a once worn-out commercial strip with neighborhood ambiance, "just like in Europe," everybody exclaims in praising this market. There are barbecue stalls, Chinese take-out stands, several live music acts and political activists manning tables in one block. And, oh yes, some farmers. They are down at one end of the festival where the crowd starts to peter out, looking like a sideshow to the main event. Which is why some farmers market watchers are concerned about the spread of San Luis Obispo wannabes. To be sure, plenty of farmers are happy to have the additional sales outlet. But the farmers who do best here tend to be those selling sells fruits that can be eaten out of hand on the spot. |
| San
Francisco/Alemany 100 Alemany Blvd. Saturday |
Farmers fought a bitter battle with the grocers lobby to launch the forerunner of this farmers market during World War II. [Click to go to an interview with John Brucato, the "father of the Alemany market."] The market has been at the present site since the summer of 1947 – and has the Old World look to match its age. It looks a lot more like a wholesale produce terminal than a contemporary Yuppie chow market. The farmers – often more than 100 of them – back their trucks into stalls under columned structures that stretch across a large lot beside a freeway in the warehouse district on the south side of San Francisco near Candlestick Park. Here, you can observe first-hand an ethnic shift underway among California farmers. There are still a number of Italian-American farmers on hand, second and third generation descendants of the founders of this market, who farmed the agricultural suburbs of Marin and Santa Clara counties in the 1940s. Now Asian-American farmers, including a sizable contingent of Filipinos from the Stockton area, are a growing presence. The variety of new crops – from bok choy and gailon to taro root and pigeon peas -- reflects it. |
| San Francisco/Ferry Plaza Embarcadero at Green Street Saturday |
The Embarcadero farmers market on the San Francisco Bay waterfront has a chefs program that every other farmers market in the state would die for. Every Saturday from May through October, one trendy chef from a trendy local restaurant after another steps up to the table under a tent before rows of chairs and offers a cooking demonstration using market produce -- with samples for the audience at the end. The premium gourmet fruits and vegetables sold by many of the 60 or so farmers at this market live up to the chefs’ accolades. The farmers are obviously proud of their produce, judging from the efforts they make to create some of the most attractive farmers market displays in the state. The San Francisco Public Market Collaborative, sponsor of the market, hopes to change the venue to the historic Ferry Building when the renovation of that complex is completed in June 2002. But that plan faces tough sledding against much more financially rewarding proposals from developers who covet use of the building. [Click here to read about the Ferry Building farmers market plan.] |
| San Rafael Marin Civic Center, Hwy 101 and San Pedro Sunday |
It speaks for both the volume of vegetables consumed by this market’s affluent suburban San Francisco clientele, and perhaps also for the idiosyncratic nature of Marin County, that farmers sell salad mix here out of kids’ plastic wading pools. Fifty to 100 farmers are joined at the market by a couple dozen craft vendors and purveyors of sausage, goat cheese, flavored vinegars and other farm-crafted foods from the north San Francisco Bay area’s famed gourmet farmers. The Sunday market has use of a large parking lot on a hillside below a municipal complex. A Thursday market – smaller than the weekend market but still a large 50-farmer market in its own right – assembles in a vacant lot one Highway 101 exit to the north. Look for the seasonal festivals hosted by this market, featuring tastings of a couple dozen different varieties of tomatoes, peaches, melons or other fruits or vegetables of the moment. The market's management has recently been embroiled in a nasty dispute over control of the board of directors with many of the farmers and craft vendors, which hopefully can be resolved to the benefit of the market in the long run. |
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Copyright 1998 Seasonal Chef
