The Pico Market in Santa Monica
Virginia Avenue Park at Pico and Cloverfield
Saturdays, 8am-1pm
If the notorious and therefore heavily foot-trafficked Saturday Santa Monica Farmers Market on 3rd Street is at all off-putting to you, you can head to Virginia Avenue Park on Pico for a less crowded Santa Monica installment of fresh produce. Hardly a destination except for local shoppers and families with young children, the market was smallish and intimate with hardly an inconvenient crowd in sight. Definitely lacking in the hustle and bustle department, and the first market in the series without some form of live music, the Pico market is ideal if you are in the area and want to make a quick stop.
This was one of the first weeks that shoppers have been able to find heirloom tomatoes, and there were at least four vendors with plenty of those knobby and multi-colored specimens to choose from. The most and best to be found were at the Summer Harvest Farms tent, whose giant “ORGANIC” sign was an obvious selling point. They were also the only vendor with Santa Rosa Plums, tiny though they may have been.
One vendor with a bustling tent but no sign or business name to speak of had the most impressive assortment of peppers and giant eggplant I have yet seen. They even boasted a deep purple bellpepper, tiny but completely new to me. Exactly the reason astute shoppers patronize brand-less farmers over grocery stores, not to mention the competitive pricing.
A good reason to stop by this Santa Monica farmers market over its more popular big brother is to buy oysters and other tasty mollusks from Carlsbad Aquafarm. They sell at the Hollywood and 3rd Street markets as well on scattered Saturdays and Wednesdays, but considering the smaller size and crowds at the Pico market, selection is probably much easier here, especially if you cannot bring yourself to arrive at 8am on a Saturday.
Like every farmers market, the aroma of freshly made quesadillas and sausage sandwiches drew lines around lunchtime. I ordered a chicken and apple sausage sandwich from Candy’s Gourmet All Natural Meats, mostly because the giant skillet of golden onions sauteing was extremely hard to walk past. They practically force a sample of hot carne asada and sausage on any passerby, persuading them to either buy a sandwich or a few pounds of uncooked sausage to take home. The market is directly adjacent a park, complete with one of those adorable contemporary playgrounds where everything is squishy and made from recycled who-knows-what, perfect for a picnic.
Like I said, this is definitely a market for locals or if you happen to be passing by. It has none of that charm and ambiance that would put it on a rustic looking magazine cover, nor does it have a radio show broadcast from it like the one on 3rd street. This should not reflect poorly on its produce however, and in fact, I would probably return to this one when I had a definite shopping list in mind, as it was right off of the 10 freeway, parking was easy and free, and I did not have to give flat-tires to people who annoyed my while I was trying to walk.
Photos by Shelby Chambers
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