Summerville Farmer’s Market

8/27/2016

This market is great!  Small enough to have access to every vendor yet diverse enough to keep me coming back.
BEST:  there's a section right off main near the fountain that will satisfy every time.  In order from the corner.  Greek-best gyro (try a gyro meat and cheese omelette before shopping!  The cookie chick has the freshest, tastiest gourmet treats anywhere!  Cheese- great Brie of many flavors and all outstanding.  Rio Bertellini pastas are homemade and always great!  Lemonade and soft pretzels are tasty snack.  On the opposite corner is the little red barn for great simple food and sweet tea .
NOT good:  Angel blends is a juice company that uses buzz words like organic and antioxidants to get your attention then sells you a $5 cup of awful juice.  C'mon, $5 for lemonade?  The pretzel lady uses real lemons, tastes great and charges $4 for twice as much.  Don't be fooled.
The sea food lady on the other side of the market is good for a laugh cause her attitude sucks and she's over priced.

Check it all out, you won't be disappointed !

11/16/2016

• 1 check-in

Great spot on Saturday morning with the kids.

Lots of cool things like boiled peanuts, candles and the best damn home baked cookies in Summerville. Just enough booths to keep you busy for an hour , but not waste the whole day spending.

Lots of fun, great local products and a fun Weekend morning.

6/11/2016

• 2 check-ins

• Listed in 2016 Was a Year..., Simply Summerville

I go to the Summerville Farmer's Market because it's nice to have the convenience of a farmer's market nearby. There are three vendors that I visit regularly: one that sells shrimp, one that sells frozen Italian meals, and one that sells actual local produce. I continue to go because because of these three vendors. I'm not into the crafts or the non-local produce, and this farmer's market seems to have a lot of both. I wish the market would require vendors, especially produce vendors, to sell only locally grown produce.

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  Summerville Farmers Market

  Summerville Farmers Market

9/3/2016

Love, love, love this Farmers Market. My favorite booths are the Great Harvest bread Co., cookies, natural soda, and perogies. And the donuts (when they are there!) There is a nice mix of vendors and usually live music. Definitely check it out!

7/14/2015

• 1 check-in

One of the best farmers market in charleston. Way better than the one downtown. Small but a great selection. Fruits and vegetables all look fresh! Plus other miscellaneous folks come through such as someone selling custom peanut butter or even custom home made pasta. Can't beat it!

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  Yummmmm

  Yummmmm

5/29/2015

LOVED IT! Angel's Blends has some nice organic juices, morning pick-me-ups, and organic coffees infused with honey for coffeeholics like myself.

Charleston Spice Company also has a booth in the S'ville Farmer's Market. Very nice guy who caters to all cooking needs. There's everything from African spices to herbal spices to everyday seasonings like cayenne pepper.

Really a nice convenient place to go on a Saturday!

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  Spices from Charleston Spice Company

  Spices from Charleston Spice Company
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  Cucumbers from John's Island farm

  Cucumbers from John's Island farm
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  Watermelons from farm in John's Island

  Watermelons from farm in John's Island

6/6/2016

My Fiance and I LOVE going to this farmers market. What a wide variety of different food, stands, art, etc. Everyone is always in a great mood and the prices are really hard to beat. I hate missing a Saturday when I can't make it to the market!

6/3/2016

Small but usable. Several very good produce and spice vendors. Herb selection (mid-April) was disappointing. Visit Charleston Spice Co, they have several excellent spice blends including the best Frogmore Stew (AKA Low Country Boil) seasoning ever. This vendor is the best I have encountered in many years. As with any Farmers' Market, there is the usual assortment of 'Hippies fleecing the Yuppies' crafts types.
Several stands had what appeared to be very good baked goods if you like sweet stuff.

I will check out the grits device next visit. I hope they have yellow or speckled-heart grits as both those make great Shrimp Grits.

9/6/2015

• 7 check-ins

Best famers market I have been to. Parking is never an issue compared to going to downtown Charleston. All the vendors are really friendly. The selection is good.

7/2/2012

• 4 check-ins

Fantastic farmers market.  Has great selections of local produce, baked goods, boiled p'nuts, plants, crafts, and coffee.

A few tips.  Find the contraption, jalopy of a thing that grinds out fresh grits.  $2 a bag.  A lady has boiled peanuts, one of the bakers makes incredible strudle, another makes great $6 cobblers.  Finally, some of the vendor take food stamps and WIC.  THAT is freaking awesome. No one should be barred from fresh, good food!

10/18/2014

• 4 check-ins

What a wonderful way to spend a Saturday, local farmers market, they have everything from trees to clothes. All of the people are local to Summerville and super friendly. We got free samples of Italian ice and fresh baked breads. If you are looking to give your money to people and not a corporation then you must come here. Get here early when it is less crowded!

9/16/2012

How does someone decide if a farmers market was a good experience? Does it have the items they are looking for? The promotion of local goods for sale? Kid friendly? Perhaps all of these or none of these.
The location is really quaint and parking is ample.
There were many vendors peddling their wares IE: pies, jams, produce, prepared foods, arts and crafts and more. I made a few purchases most of which were fairly priced until I got to the produce truck (I didn't get the name) and paid $9.50 for a cucumber, cauliflower and a bag of beans. Perhaps the young Mexican handling the money, miscalculated.
Overall a nice way to spend 30-45 minutes.

8/25/2012

• Listed in Charleston Area Favorites

So glad this is here.  Living in an area with so much awesome local produce, meat, etc. it would be awful not to have such a convenient way to take advantage of it.  This is starting to become an every Saturday morning venture for me and my family.  The set up changes week to week, however the majority of the same vendors are there every Saturday.

We've gotten some awesome local honey from just down the road, raw milk!, homemade local turkey sausage, peach pepper jelly(this stuff is good), tons of good produce, and my personal favorite: Grits!  There is just something to be said about good grits.  I find it said that many people have never even truely had good ones (no waffle house, ihop, most mom and pop joints, anything you can by at a food lion DONT count!) when they aren't even that expensive, this guy sells them for $2 a bag that will feed a family of 4 several times over. Go get these grits, make these grits, enjoy your life.

Plenty more stuff for us to try here that I'm looking forward too.  We noticed a lady last week that had some amazing looking local shrimp.  Definitely on the menu soon.

5/11/2013

• 1 check-in

Not as crowded as downtown but still great stuff. Local food, local people, great time on Saturdays. Parking can be found all around for free.

5/6/2013

• 2 check-ins

Lots of great local crafts, products, food, and produce.  The strawberries from Shuler Farms are sweet, juicy, and massive.  There's usually a couple of food trucks here as well.  A must stop if you're in the area on a Saturday.

7/19/2008

• First to Review

Wife went out as a scout last week to the Summerville Farmers Market and she came back with a glowing review, plus all fingers and toes.

So this Saturday, we took the whole fam damily out to find produce that would hopefully beat the garbage I've been scraping out of the bins at walmart lately (not hard to do) but also give us additional reasons to love living in Summerville (equally achievable).

To be up-front, I wasn't really hot on the idea of buying produce at a farmers market. It seemed exorbitantly expensive and inefficient. I know, I know... 'what about the little guy", but I'm a cold-hearted man who can usually be caught squeezing out the little man for big-box corporate automatons when nobody is looking. Yay, capitalism?

The farmers market is right off 17, to the right just after you hit the railroad tracks in downtown Summerville. Nice little area of town with all the historic buildings, tons of nice, shady trees, and plenty of cool stores that you won't find in your typical sprawling suburban stripmall. This Saturday we had threats of a tropical storm hovering just off the coast so foot-traffic was down a bit. Still had about 25-30 booths going so I guess it is either a bit more heavily traveled or this is just a great way to spend a Saturday for the vendors.

We were extremely impressed with the quality of the produce. Pickling cukes were nice and dark green without the bleached-out look you find at most supermarkets.

- Peaches? Awesome
- Tomatoes? Awesome
- Sweet Corn? Sucked...

just kidding. It was awesome as well. Pretty much everything there is cheaper than you'd get at Walmart and about 10x the quality of Publix. Whole Foods? WF probably buys from these same vendors and charges you 10x. (see my whole foods review)

Here's the trick for the uninitiated at a farmers market.

Give the whole place a walk-through before you buy anything. Prices can vary widely from booth to booth. Much of the time what looks like the best produce not only
- costs the most
- isn't the best out there.

Here's an example from my trip.

My wife bought peaches from one unnamed stand the first week which looked great and tasted equally so. No match that I've found in a grocer within the past 10ish years. This time we gave a shot to a stand which frankly had ugly peaches, but the prices were dynamite - less than 1/2 of the previous week's vendor we used.

Verdict? The ugly (and 50% cheaper) peaches were slightly better than the pretty ones. Makes my decision that much easier next time - they all look the same in the dark, right?

Second tip is to ask anyone older or "authentic-looking" (whatever that means) as to how to pick the best stuff. Thanks to Rivers produce for hooking my wife and I up on some additional knowledge about picking tomatoes.

When I saw a tomato "cracking" at the top, I'd leave it alone - likewise with my wife who is a tomato  aficionado at it's most hard-core, depraved state. They called it a "catfish eye" and told us that's when a tom is at its best.

We took the gamble and you know what? Great stuff.  Would I have willingly picked a watermelon with a yellow & bruised bottom? Not until the farmers' market. Best I've ever had. Color me city-boy if you want.

Best part, IMO is a little stroll around downtown before or after. I'm still waiting for some breakfast vendors to set up shop there but if anyone wants to check out the "greasy-spoon-looking" Carolina Joe's right next to it before I do... friend me up on here and maybe we can all hook up for some breakfast.

Anyway, this is yet another reason to like Summerville. It was very friendly, low key even though there were plenty of dogs and kids. Everyone had a smile, prices were awesome and quality was high. In all, a great way to spend an hour w/ the family or getting to know the neighbors.