Don’t own a NOLA home with yard space for growing a veggie and herb garden? New Orleans boasts about a dozen farmers markets, with about another dozen in the greater New Orleans metro area.
Fortunately, New Orleans doesn’t lack in farmers markets. Here’s what you can find across the city on any day of the week in terms of seasonal produce, Louisiana seafood, homemade gourmet foods, chef popups, and more.
For those who don’t own a New Orleans home with a fenced-in backyard for veggie gardens, New Orleans boasts about a dozen farmers markets, with about a dozen more in the greater New Orleans metro area. Some are open every day, like the French Market. Others have regular days of the week and hours, such as the Crescent City markets held on different days across the city. Still others follow a mobile, pop-up format, like the Sankofa Mobile Market.
Most markets focus on seasonal produce, meat, and seafood, but might also feature baked goods, preserved fruit and honey, plants, live music, and arts and crafts. Depending on the market, you might also find some locally grown or made niche products — from fresh Louisiana seafood and homemade tofu and soy milk to goat cheese, goat and lamb meat, locally grown bananas, heirloom mirlitons, Creole cream cheese, Mexican tamales, muscadine grapes, and much more. Some of the featured products can be found in grocery stores, but are usually of higher quality and competitively priced (like raw honey, homemade jams, or fresh meat); others can be found only at farmers markets.
The markets also frequently feature visiting vendors in addition to the “regular” anchor vendors. Most markets provide updates on websites and Facebook pages on what’s in season, special events, featured vendors, seasonal recipes, and more. Here’s the rundown of the New Orleans farmers markets grouped by the day of the week.
Every Day of the Week/Multiple Days
The Farmers Market at the French Market
Location: Main entrance at Ursulines and North Peters Streets; French Market, French Quarter
Hours: Daily, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
The food stands at the Farmers Market Pavilion offer spices, produce, and local foods that are uniquely New Orleans — from pralines to oysters to hot sauce. This is the market with the most prepared-food vendors in the city, including a variety of vegan and gluten-free options.
The Farmers Market Pavilion hosts the annual Creole Tomato Festival in early June to celebrate its harvest; the 2018 festival will be June 9-10. It is also the site of the Crescent City Farmers Market on Wednesdays (see below) and the Artisan Saturday Market with local arts, crafts, and specialty foods. On top of all this, this market also hosts chef popups and cameos, and an occasional cooking demo.
The Farmers Market Pavilion is part of the French Market, the oldest continually operating public market in the country. Originally laid out as a traditional open-air European market, it extends about five blocks, from the daily flea market at the end of Esplanade Avenue to Cafe du Monde on Decatur Street.
Location: Varies
Hours: Vary
The market is a farm stand on wheels that has set stops on a monthly basis, mainly in the 9th Ward, Hollygrove, and Broadmoor neighborhoods. It’s run by the Sankofa Community Development Corporation and aims to increase access to fresh, seasonal produce at affordable prices in the underserved communities that include seniors and food-insecure families.
The seasonal produce is sustainably grown at the Sankofa Garden at 27 St. Claude Court and also is sourced from local farmers. In addition to vegetables, the market offers flowers, baked goods, tea, beauty products, and prepared foods such as homemade curry.
Monthly stops include:
- Villa St. Maurice, 500 St. Maurice Ave.: second and fourth Tuesdays, 3-4 p.m.
- Hollygrove Senior Center, 3300 Hamilton St.: second and third Thursdays, 1-2 p.m.
- Lower 9 Senior Center, 1616 Caffin Ave.: third Thursdays, 11 a.m.- noon
- Royal Castle Childhood Center, 3800 Eagle St.: first Fridays, 4-5 p.m.
- Broadmoor Arts and Wellness Center, 3900 Gen. Taylor St.: second Fridays, 3-4 p.m.
Monday
Location: 300 N. Broad St. (at Bienville Avenue)
Hours: 4-7 p.m.
The weekly Monday market offers a medley of locally grown produce and specialty items such as homemade kimchi and pesto. The Project’s partners include Whole Foods Market and the Liberty’s Kitchen culinary program, as well as a number of local teaching farms and community centers. The goal of this food hub is to provide affordable food to the Broad Street neighborhood, plus education and training resources. Check out the market’s Facebook page for special events.
Tuesday
Location: 200 Broadway at the River, Uptown
Hours: 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
This market is part of the network of weekly Crescent City Farmers Markets that have set days, hours, and locations in several New Orleans neighborhoods. They run year-round, rain or shine.
The Tuesday market is at the northeast corner of the Tulane Square parking lot, between the Mississippi River and Tulane Square (formerly known as Uptown Square), close to Audubon Park. The Green Plate Special tent is one of the standout features, with gourmet products, visiting chefs, and cooking demos.
Wednesday
Location: 1235 N. Peters St. in the French Market, French Quarter
Hours: 1-5 p.m.
A favorite of French Quarter condo owners, this is another part of the Crescent City Farmers Market Lineup. The Wednesday market offers all the flavors of the French Quarter and the oldest continually run public market in the country, plus two-hour validated parking for the French Market’s Riverside Lot.
Thursday
Location: 3700 Orleans Ave. at the American Can Co. building, Mid-City
Hours: 3-7 p.m.
The market, run by the Crescent City Farmers Market, is usually smaller than its counterparts elsewhere in the city, but it’s mighty, and has been popular ever since its inception in 2002 (and the subsequent post-Katrina resurrection).
This market operates in the parking lot of the American Can Company. It offers a variety of Louisiana seafood (drum, catfish, softshell crabs, and jumbo shrimp are the usual), bread, jam, seasonal harvest, dairy, soup, tamales, fudge, popsicles, starter plants, and more. The vendor lineup stays more or less the same and has a loyal following. Many customers combine the visit to the market with the Pearl Wine Co. free wine tasting (5 to 7 p.m. on Thursdays) held inside the store located in the American Can Company building.
Location: Adjacent to the main Armstrong Park entrance, 901 N. Rampart St. between St. Ann and St. Phillip streets, Treme
Hours: 3-7 p.m.
Serving the Treme community, the Marketplace at Armstrong Park (“MAP”) boosts the economic development of the neighborhood that unfortunately doesn’t have enough grocery stores, and features local produce and seafood vendors, plus live music and arts and crafts. Fresh produce is always seasonal, and includes tomatoes, peaches, chard, watermelon, summer squash, and black-eyed peas. In addition to fresh seafood, boiled shrimp and crabs are available, plus crabmeat-stuffed artichokes and crawfish sausage. Other goods include farm-fresh dairy, boiled peanuts, honey, pickled okra, spices, bean mixes, and natural soap and beauty products.
Saturday
Location: 750 Carondelet Street at Julia Street, Downtown
Hours: 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Look for this weekend-morning market at Julia and Carondelet streets, right on the St. Charles streetcar line. It features many of the same vendors, who hail from as far as Mississippi, that the market hosts on other days of the week at other locations. You can learn about Vendor of the Week on the market’s website.
Location: 5029 St. Claude Avenue, 9th Ward
Hours: 10 a.m. – 2p.m.
Just like its mobile version, the Sankofa Farmers Market offers fresh produce, seafood, and other goodies to the communities of the New Orleans 9th Ward. More than 20 vendors offer everything from organic blueberries to fresh-cut flowers and wild-caught Louisiana shrimp. Several local nursery vendors offer starter plants. Traditional Louisiana foods include brown rice, pralines, pecans, Southern greens and root vegetables, blackberry jelly, Creole cream cheese, and much more.
Many flowers and herbs come from urban and community gardens in New Orleans, and a few school gardens (Frederick Douglass Garden at KIPP Renaissance High School and Langston Hughes Academy School Garden, for instance). Baked goods and organic local citrus like satsumas, grapefruit, Louisiana sweet oranges, Louisiana navel oranges, and tangelos are also represented.
Location: 14401 Alcee Fortier Boulevard, New Orleans East
Hours: 6-9 a.m.
This gem of a market is worth a trip to New Orleans East. Hosting about 20 vendors who set up shop on blankets on a parking lot, the market is located in Versailles, which boasts a robust Vietnamese community. You’ll find live poultry, fresh seafood, chiles, okra, lemongrass, snow peas, daikon radishes, Thai eggplant, and pomelo grapefruit. Prepared food includes homemade rice cakes. Fans of the market advise to get there early, as the vendors tend to sell out by mid-morning.