Gather up your reusable bags because a Farmer’s Market is coming to Clement Street!
Today was the final hurdle to the market happening – needed SFMTA approval of the street closures and bus reroutings that are required to accommodate the Sunday market. We got word via Foggy Notion’s Twitter that everything was approved at the SFMTA meeting:
Street closure just approved by @sfmta_muni – It’s official! Clement St Farmers Market coming June 23! Yay! #innerrichmond
— Foggy Notion (@foggynotionSF) June 13, 2013
That means the first market will take place on Sunday, June 23 (yes, in just 1 week!). The market will be run by the Agricultural Institute of Marin (AIM), which currently runs other markets at Stonestown, Civic Center, and in other Bay Area locations.
The Clement Street farmer’s market will feature a wide range of local products, including eggs, milk, cheeses, meats, plus children activities, and live music. The market will also provide matching dollars for “food stamp” users, and additional bike parking.
This initial approval is for a 6 week pilot of the market, which will run on Clement Street every Sunday between 2nd and 4th Avenues from 9am until 2pm.
Sarah B.
This is great! I plan to go to the market and I hope there’s a good turnout during the 6 week trial run.
I can’t wait! I’ll definitely be there and hope everyone supports this market. I can’t think of a better way to spend a Sunday than going to a local farmer’s market and then walking down Clement St and enjoying the amazingly diverse range of stores, restaurants etc that can be found. Clement is one of the city’s best kept secrets.
I agree with Scott. I love the eclectic variety of establishments found on Clement Street and the Richmond in its entirety, but I have to say, (as this one Rhode Islander can testify to), it’s no secret! Clement Street is the first place I visit on my trips to San Francisco. I do hope I’m in town to visit this new neighborhood market when it’s in session.
Awesome news! I’m going to tell everyone I know in the neighborhood to shop the market. See you all on the 23rd!!!
Hooray, finally! Hopefully this will give the Richmond District even more of a community feel; so far the Inner Sunset has really had us beat on that score.
So excited for this, I know I’ll be there every Sunday!
Thank you to Peter Lauterborn from my office, the Clement Street Merchants Assn, Argonne Community Garden, Peabody elementary school PTA, Argonne elementary school PTO and many others for working with the great folks from Marin Agricultural Institute to organize our community farmer’s market! We are working hard to make it family friendly, and thanks to Foggy Notion, Seed Store, ParkLife, Green Apple, Cumaica Coffee House and Giorgio’s Pizzeria and other businesses too for helping to make this successful!
Eric Mar, District 1 Supervisor
If you have any suggestions or questions – contact Peter at 415-554-7411 or email him at peter.lauterborn@sfgov.org
So happy this is finally happening in our hood!! Thanks for everyone who made this possible!! It’s truly appreciated.
Modest clarification, AIM runs the Farmer’s Market at Marin’s Civic Center (San Rafael) not the SF Civic Center (UN Plaza)
Do you people not shop at the plethora of existing small-business produce markets?! http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/18/5-farmers-markets/
Seriously, this is the greatest waste of public resources I have seen amidst the unrelenting tide of arrogant, self-centered white people (you can be any ethnicity and still impose white values) moving to our neighborhoods and trying to remake them in their own image. Lame to the Nth degree.
seriously, when you think about it, only the established, local grocers on clement will be hurt by these outside farmers or what have you coming into the city to sell their stuff and packing up and leaving again. i will avoid this farmer’s market so i can support my local richmond district businesses.
Boo. There are already plenty of markets on Clement, and this will only hurt them. Put these farmers markets someplace where there are limited choices of where to shop for fruit and veggies. I won’t attend this market, but I will support the Clement St shops instead.
To the above commenters: some folks would like options other than the grocers already there with poor quality vegetable trucked/flown in from who knows where. If you don’t care where your food comes from, remain happily ignorant. I, personally, will welcome some truly local farmers with fresh non-GMO veggies without pesticides. It has nothing to do with race. It’s about being aware of where your food comes from. A Farmers Market also creates community, where neighbors can meet and socialize. It’s about more than food- it’s about conscious consumerism and community-building.
Hm.
Backing up your argument with a website called stuffwhitepeoplelike.com is almost as pathetic and ignorant as the racist comment you based on it. You should go to a farmer’s market one day – there are lots of races there, selling and buying. But you wouldn’t know that, because you’re a non-white white, right?
For all of you out there who feel threatened, personally or otherwise, by people selling and buying fresh local produce and smiling for a few hours on a Sunday, please get over it. There REALLY are much worse things to deal with in life.
Not everything is political. Don’t fall into that trap, you’re missing the point.
If you don’t support this, then you don’t support the neighborhood. This helps make the Richmond a destination and bring in people who wouldn’t normally come. If the local markets are as great as you say (which I happen to disagree with, quality of produce, cleanliness, etc.) then they won’t be destroyed by one farmer’s market. Furthermore, the neighborhood needs more community projects and events to help liven the community. In reality what do you know of the local markets? What would you say of 3-4 of them were under the same ownership, would you still think of them as your tiny neighborhood store? Check your facts, don’t be ignorant, and get out and support your community. Nuff Said.
i have an autoimmune disease and have been told by my doctors to eat only organic foods because the increased incidence of autoimmune disease is suspected to be linked to environmental toxicity, pesticides, etc. seeking out organic produce has nothing to do with being a white hipster doofus, but everything to do with healing my body and keeping my child healthy. i am grateful for the new farmer’s market. thank you to everyone who made it happen.
I am really excited that this is happening and I will be sure to be there every week. But that doesn’t mean that it will detour me from my neighborhood mom and pop produce and groceries that I also frequent.
I seriously hate the argument that our neighborhood is being appropriated by outsiders. I would never want to see our neighborhood gentrified like the Mission and Lower Haight have become, but I do appreciate that there are some out-of-the-box small businesses (many of which are actually run Richmond District residents) who have moved into spaces that stayed vacant for months, or even years, and tried to breathe some life back into our merchant corridors which have been struggling for the past several years.
For the naysayers, please do your research. Neighborhood farmers markets, do more than provide healthier and farm fresh options, they bring communities together and stimulate the economy of merchant corridors because they draw people out and those people usually wind up staying around and shopping at local businesses. And if you had gone to any of the community meetings you would know that the Agricultural Institute of Marin has gone above and beyond to make this a success.
1. Not only did they do plenty of merchant outreach to all of the different businesses on Clement, they came back with Cantonese and Mandarin speaking volunteers to do outreach to Chinese businesses. Grocery stores carry thousands of items that you can’t get at the farmer’s market and they are open 7 days a week which leaves little threat in terms of competition. As result, the response was very positive.
2. During their outreach, they evaluated the local restaurant menus so that they would know what kind of food vendors not to bring in.
3. Not only do they accept EBT/WIC, they match it so that people can get more for their money without worrying about draining their monthly allotment. The last census showed that our neighborhood as a whole has the third highest hidden poverty rate in the City, and we have a lot of seniors, young parents on fixed incomes, and immigrant families. If anything it’s a very good thing them.
4. They plan on offering benefits like bike parking and nutrition/cooking classes to engage neighbors.
5. They have given an open invitation to small independent businesses who make their products like Pretty Please Bakery, Foggy Notion to participate.
We are one of the few neighborhoods in the City, that has considerable population and small business density, without a farmers market. I, for one, want to see it succeed. And it sounds like I am not alone on that. Others have said, if you don’t support it and will be “boycotting”, then that’s your prerogative. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be taking advantage of this new resource and rediscovering our love for Clement Street in the process.
It is June 23rd, I am sitting in a Clement St coffee shop, waking up, and as I look out the window onto Clement street, I see many many smiling faces walking back and forth through the new Farmers Market, and I don’t see how anyone who enjoys a community spirit can see anything wrong with this. It’s very welcome as far as I am concerned.
I was wrong, wrong, wrong about the music.
It was WAAAY too loud and ruined my peaceful Sunday.
Not only was it too loud, it kept going back and forth, like it was moving.
One couldn’t even get used to it. I didn’t listen to the naysayers because I had no idea it would be that loud. You do NOT need this for a Farmer’s Market.
Also, it is currently FOUR p.m.
But I do think that’s what I’m listening to BLOCKS away.
If not, I apologize for my remarks. however, there is LOUD music wafting here near Lake.
I think you’re hearing the Alice Summerthing festival which took place in GGP today from 12 to 4.
Anybody know if it’ll be more than the 6-week trial run now that it’s been deemed a success?