Around the world, you find farmers markets in historic halls of iron and glass and in leafy, bucolic town squares.
For 21 years, we found the Saturday version of the Crescent City Farmers Market in a small corner parking lot in downtown New Orleans. Normally it was a utilitarian space. But for one day each week it came alive, animated by the energy of people and food and hand-to-hand commerce.
Well now, the Crescent City Farmers Market is out to create that organic ambiance all over again at a new location. That’s because the Saturday market has moved to corner of Carondelet and Julia streets in downtown New Orleans.
It's a short move, just a few blocks, and its new home is similar to the original, just a plain old paved parking lot. As before, all of the infrastructure is a pack-in, pack-out proposition of tents and umbrellas, farm trucks and ice chests. But, the move is significant, both for opening a new chapter for the city’s largest farmers market, and in its potential to open a new perspective on the area around it.
Neighborhoods in New Orleans are like microclimates, to borrow a term from the farmers. They can change in a matter of blocks. And few places in New Orleans have been changing faster than the area where the farmers market now calls home.
When a supermarket opened downtown a few years back it was big news, signaling brighter prospects for the neighborhood. Now, that grocery has plenty of company. Surface parking lots have been replaced by new apartments and storefronts. New hotels have risen, new eateries have emerged, creating something of a brunchers’ paradise near the market.
There are three coffee shops each within two blocks of the new farmers market site, none more than six months old. Walk a block and change away and there’s a wine shop where the bottles climb the walls and a counter for imported cheeses and cured meats sits in the middle. It’s easy to see symbiotic relationships with farmers market shoppers taking shape around here.
Unlike the old location, which would move to a covered garage for bad weather, there is no indoor option at the new space. So now, the Saturday market is always outdoors. That could take some getting used to.
But on nice days, walking from a parking space on the adjacent blocks may be revealing. A good market has a way of re-orienting the area around it, and maybe giving people pause to take a fresh look. Just remember when you’re filling your grocery bag to feed your parking meter. It’s still downtown New Orleans, after all, and some things never change.
Saturdays, 8 a.m.-noon
750 Carondelet St.
Around the new market you’ll find:
Drip Affogato Bar, 703 Carondelet St.
Mammoth Espresso, 821 Baronne St.
Stumptown Coffee, 610 Carondelet St.
Nearby wine shop
Keife & Co., 801 Howard Ave.
For other market information, see crescentcityfarmersmarket.org.
