Come and enjoy one of the oldest, most interesting, and culturally diverse Farmers' Markets in the Bay Area. The Old Oakland Farmers' Market is nestled between rows of Victorians and the revitalized Swan's Marketplace, an old-fashioned open-air market. The area is characterized by a charming collection of 19th Century Victorian buildings that were restored in the 1980s to create an architecturally distinctive retail and tourist destination.
Every Friday, all year 'round, on Ninth Street between Broadway and Clay Streets, this marketplace is bustling in the early hours (officially opens at 8:00am, but the live chickens and wild game birds are usually sold out by then!) and continues until 2:00 pm. The market attracts an early-morning crowd from Oakland's nearby Chinatown. As the day rolls on, an influx of downtown office dwellers flood the mix of shoppers and indulge themselves for lunch with hot sausage sandwiches, vegan piroshkis, Indian samosas, and homemade tamales.
This Farmers' Market is stacked high with worldly exotic produce, from all the "choys" (Bok, Siu, Yau, Een, Ong), Winter, Fuzzy, and Bitter Melon, long beans (purple & green), mounds of leaves (okra, squash, bittermelon, pea, & bean to name a few) lemon grass, all varieties of mints & basil, stalks of sugar cane, raw peanuts, rapini, okra, black eyed peas, mustard greens, many varieties of hot peppers, to all different sizes, shapes, and colors of eggplant. You'll also find dates and figs, fresh berries, cherries, stonefruit, citrus, grapes, mushrooms, dried fruits and nuts. Buckets of fresh flowers, potted plants, herbs, and orchids are in abundance. A variety of bakery items, spices, fresh roasted coffee beans, and prepared foods. Also available are fresh fish and oysters, live catfish, crab, salted duck eggs, baluts (white fertile duck eggs), and wild game birds and chicken.
- Ron Pardini, Executive Director, Urban Village
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