By Liz Arave
Last Saturday morning, our group, consisting of Krystal Villanueva, Liz Arave, Kelsee Andersen, Kinzie Jones, and Audrey Bradshaw visited the Farmers Market in Pioneer Park. The market is held Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., June through October and also Tuesdays from 4 p.m. to dusk, August through October.
Once you get past the sketchy part of downtown Salt Lake City and into Pioneer Park you are surrounded by masses of people all shopping or sightseeing through the market. The journey there can be an interesting one. After our group’s experience, we recommend getting off Trax at the Planetarium station. We got off at Salt Lake Central and took the back way to the park. This was a little terrifying. We saw interesting sights along the way, including: shoes left in a puddle of water, murals on buildings, and homeless people. Due to the Farmers Market, all the homeless people had been kicked out of the park and were literally lining the streets. I felt like I would be mugged at any second, but we made it to the market safely. It was interesting to see the sudden change just by crossing the street to the park. Outside were the homeless people and inside were predominately middle class consumers.
If you plan on riding the trax to the Farmers Market, we encourage you to bring your Ucard or proof of purchase so you can legally ride. If you don’t you may run into a police officer and be cited with a $50 fine or worse. An unfortunate friend of ours had this happen to him while on our walkabout.
The Farmers Market was fascinating. Just about any type of art or fresh food can be found there. Everything from jewelry to paintings to fresh mint limeade is at your fingertips. There are more than 250 booths to choose from. Plus there are musicians all along the paths,many of them children under ten. We even saw a “Piano Bike.” This musician had a small trailer hooked up to his bike with an old-fashioned piano on it. Dogs are even allowed in the market and we saw several on our trip.
After enjoying the Farmers Market, we took the short walk across the street to Bruge’s Waffles. These are definitely the best waffles I have ever had in my life. The shop is little more than a closet, but seating is offered outside. They have several options to put on your waffles, including: strawberries, crème, ice cream, kiwi, chocolate, and more. They are worth the possibility of being mugged around Pioneer Park for their delicious taste.
Great photos! They catch the high energy and diversity of the Farmers Market experience. I should say if you go back you might want to take the Energy Solutions light rail stop and then walk along 300 West. You might feel safer, although I should say you are very safe on either 400 West or 300 West, its just different from what most of you have might have experienced.
ReplyDeleteI was at the Farmers Market saturday morning, I'm sorry we didn't bump into each other. I was amazed at the crowd. Typically more than 10,000 go to the market saturdays, some I suspect just to be out in the sunshine, others are very earnestly looking for good deals. You always see several chefs hurrying around trying to get fresh greens or veggies for their restaurants. I think the little kids playing suzuki violin songs have a great gig--they make good money playing twinkle twinkle little star and just looking cute. Did you have any sense whether this was a truly public crowd--you noted that the homeless seemed to be banished to the edges of the park, although nothing formal makes this happen. The crowd seems to be primarily middle class, lots of strollers a range of dogs from gigantic great danes to tiny dogs I am always afraid I will step on. I love walking down the center aisle where there are great international food booths. For instance, a group of Sudanese refugee women have a booth where they make money they share with their community of immigrants and its great food.
I think the numbers at the Farmers Market indicate that many of us yearn for community spaces, public spaces that we can share with strangers and have fun out of doors and then leave it to go back to our private spaces.
I hope you had fun! You're a good looking group!