A Look At North Park Farmers Market (FMR)

We wanted to share this new series we are creating: FMR (Farmers Market Review), I don’t know if you noticed but there are a lot of farmers markets out there!

Here in San Diego, I can name 20 off the top of my head, and I know there are a lot more in the area. Each market has its own flair and personality, in the FMR Series we are going to try and capture some of that, and let you know our take on the markets and which ones we like best. So lets get started shall we…

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Market: North Park Farmers Market

Day: Thursday

Time: 3-7pm

Location: At University just West of 32nd Street, on Herman Street between University and North Park Way and behind CVS

Website: http://www.northparkfarmersmarket.com/index.html

Must Check Out: Therapie Boutique

We had really high expectations for this market. Something about “North Park” Just sounds cool, being close to downtown and just north of our favorite park (Balboa Park) we went into this market thinking it was going to be very hip, busy and bustling. We were very surprised by what we found. This market was very easy to find, as it is just off the freeway. Parking was a cinch (Not used to that in this area) and all the vendors and shoppers were very chill.

They have a great selection of organic farmers like our favorites JR Organics and Suzie’s Farm.

We have been loving JR’s organic strawberries, so fresh and at a great price!

And Suzie’s has been doing a lot of really fun things with their booths, and their farm. We really like their new campaign: You Pick, You Fill, You Grin! They give customers a reusable tote and you can fill it with whatever produce you want and then you pay 30 dollars! It’s a great deal since you get to keep the bag, and it’s pretty darn cute!

One thing this farmers market does that we normally would like is split up the farmers from the prepared food vendors. However in this market it seems like there is too much space, we felt it was a little too disconnected.

We also found the energy of this market to be very low. The weather was cloudy and overcast on the day we toured the market so to be fair we will have to check it out on a bright summer day and report back on the energy level.

A few things we really liked about this market: Gluten-free and vegan options!  Moncia vegan, had so many tasty looking dishes. We wish they didn’t use agave, otherwise we may have indulged in their sweets. They had chili and skillet cornbread, banana bread, cup cakes and even some kind of orange punch (still trying to figure out what they put in the pinch to make it taste so good!)

Cane Patch Pies, we just don’t have enough nice things to say about these guys! Cane Patch Pies is a California baking company that focuses on Southern Desserts, run by Jon Smalls.

Southern desserts is not something we are usually a big fan of, as most of them contain a lot of dairy and butter. But these guys came up with gluten-free and vegan sweet potato desserts and we are big fans of sweet potato! Great product aside, we really liked talking with Tony.

Not only does he have a great attitude, he’s just a cool guy to talk with. We had a little chat on agave nectar and other sweeteners, we felt like he really listened to what we had to say and has some great things to share as well. We highly recommend stopping by for some pie and saying hello to the guys at Cane Patch Pies!

Meet Therapie Boutique, San Diego’s first fashion truck. We don’t usually talk about clothing at the farmers market, I mean we are a CSA Resource company but this was just too cool not to mention.

This bus is fully equipped with all your fashion needs, clothing, jewelery and bags. The inside is what I wish my closet looked like, so very organized and clean. The bus even has 3 dressing rooms!! We got a chance to meet the owner Kelley Carney, who was just full of energy and very helpful.

This market may be be smaller than we had envisioned, but it definitely has some gems and for that we will be back, until next time!

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