San Leandro’s Downtown Farmers’ Market

As I reported before, San Leandro has a new Farmers’ Market, this time downtown. The downtown market is located on Parrot street, in front of The Englander and will operate throughout the summer on Wednesday evenings from 4 pm – 8 pm. The market was inaugurated yesterday, with a ribbon cutting ceremony involving the local politicos.
I think I like this farmer’s market more than the one at Bayfair – which seems to be getting smaller. For one, it has more activities for children – including a stand where you can get elaborate balloon animals/characters made for only $3, another where you can get a caricature made for $10 (this was not a cheap trip to the FM) and one with face painting and so forth (which we fortunately avoided). They also have activities for adults, yesterday was cooking demonstrations (which I didn’t stay for). They’ll also have family entertainment, live music and wine tastings in subsequent Wednesdays.
As you would expect, there were several fruit and veggie stands – lots of ripe strawberries, cherries and even raspberries. There were a couple of bakeries, one stand selling honey, one selling Indian breads & spreads and another one a variety of dips. There was a flower stand, a fish stand and an egg stand – which means that if we miss the quail eggs on Saturday, we’ll be able to get them on Wednesdays.
As far as food went, there is a tamales stand, a stand selling foot-long hot-dogs and teriyaki sticks ($6-9, I think) and The Englander has a burger stand. Unwisely, we decided to eat at The Englander instead, so we didn’t get to actually taste the food from there. Next week.
I’ve heard rumors that Zocalo may open a stand at the farmers’ market to sell its beans.
Here are some pictures of the market: