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Liberty Public Market gets weekly farmers market

By Michele Parente
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The market got a market.

Liberty Public Market, the popular food hall at Point Loma’s Liberty Station, debuted a weekly outdoor farmers market on May 4 with more than 60 local produce, meat, cheese and specialty food purveyors, as well as artisan crafts.

The California Certified Farmers Market, which is held from 2-7 p.m. each Thursday, fills a gap cited by some early detractors of Liberty Public Market - a dearth of fresh fruits and vegetables for sale. The market opened with one produce stall, Garden Fresh, but it soon closed.

David Spatafore, whose Blue Bridge Hospitality group co-developed and runs the year-old Liberty Public Market, said he underestimated the challenges of selling produce, such as razor-slim margins and a high potential for spoilage and food waste.

“Part of our initial plan was to get more farmers market vendors to go into the public market but what we discovered was many of those vendors just want to be farmers,” Spatafore said. “It’s different being at a farmers market once a week for four to five hours versus 12 hours a day, seven days a week in a retail situation.”

The 25,000-square-foot public market has proved to be a magnet for everyone from tourists to grazing gourmets and is dominated by stalls that sell prepared food, much of it eaten on-site.

Spatafore said several vendors - Venissimo Cheese, Liberty Meat Shop and FishBone Kitchen - all have a strong take-home retail component.

“I underestimated vegetables though, it’s a hard market,” he said. “Having the farmers bring it directly from the farm is our answer.”

The farmers market is run by Ron LaChance, the manager of the similarly sized Leucadia fresh market. It is located on the tree-lined expanse across from the public market, along Historic Decatur Road, between Sims Road and Decatur Court.

Local musicians provide entertainment and future offerings will include a “Shop with the Chef” dinner series, culinary demos and monthly pop-up tastings.
Twitter: @sdeditgirl; michele.parente@sduniontribune.com

Eat | Drink
Michele Parente

Michele Parente is the Dining, Wine + Lifestyle reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Her areas of expertise include the Valle de Guadalupe wine region, fashion, television, women’s issues and coverage of aging, such as the impact of Alzheimer’s and dementia and family caregiving. Michele is the former Sunday and features editor, where she oversaw profiles, special projects, such as the Legacy of WWII and in-depth reports on a variety of topics. She joined the U-T in 2003, supervising coverage areas that have included features, fashion, TV, Food, Consumer Health and Arts & Entertainment. Previously, Michele was the assistant features editor at The Oregonian, in Portland, as well as the Portland City Hall reporter. She spent 10 years at New York Newsday as a reporter on the crime, education, state legislature and New York City Hall beats. She was part of a team that won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting. A native New Yorker, Michele received her B.A. in political science and Italian Literature at UC Berkeley. In 1980, she studied at L’Università di Urbino, in Italy. One of her life’s goals is to make her way through each of the world’s great wine regions.

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