The final Friday of May is everything you could ever want from an afternoon as spring slips into summer. The sun glows bright in a true blue sky, birdsong wafts along a gentle breeze and Allegheny Commons Park in the North Side is the place to be. It’s the kickoff to the 2026 Northside Farmers Market, presented weekly.
People gather to shop, eat, drink, relax, enjoy; and plenty of options await. If you fancy a good read, there’s a table piled high with stacks of used books. Straight from work and looking to peel off your office togs? Tie-dyed shirts are ready to weekend your wardrobe.
Dinner is served with gyros, tacos, cheesy breads and vegan hand pies, with plenty of spice mixes and hot sauces to season to taste. Save your fork, there’s pie for dessert, as well as kettle corn, fudge, cookies, cupcakes.
Stands hold beer, cider and rye whiskey; for something softer a juice bar offers blends across the spectrum of the rainbow. A singer strums a guitar upon a humble stage, alternating classics from Carole King with “something for the young people” – Miley Cyrus.
You can buy yourself flowers! And seedlings, and herbs. A handful of stalls are laden with chard, tomatoes, cherries, cucumbers, peaches, apples, poultry, radishes, lettuces, more; an abundance of fresh fruit, vegetables and meat. In the midst of all the sweets, the savories, the words and music, the cocktails and smoothies and cider and shots, are the farms.
Northside Farmers Market, alongside others in Carrick and Squirrel Hill, is piloted by the City of Pittsburgh. A longtime market in East Liberty has been reinvented as a farm stand. A few dozen other farmers markets are scattered in the Pittsburgh area, the rest operating independently.
The assumption could be that each one, no matter who is at the helm, would maintain a focus on fresh, farmed food – it’s in the name – but that’s not necessarily the case. For some, the scale might tilt toward prepared foods; in others the social interaction is the thing.
There’s no ownership or governing body, there are no qualifications that need to be met. For organizers for whom fresh food isn’t paramount, the title “farmers market” might be a figure of speech. Those who prioritize connecting the farmer and their goods with the community, and connecting the community with their food, make the case that the name is more than just a label; it’s a measure to live up to.
James Longanecker, manager at CitiParks farmers markets, serves as market manager, comes to the position with a bumper crop of farming experience, food science education and commitment to ensuring that while markets offer a good time, they lead with fresh, quality foods from local farmers. “We have farmers markets,” she said. “Not just markets, not just food markets.” This sentiment is echoed in markets across the region, including (but not limited to) Lawrenceville Farmers Market, Bloomfield Saturday Market, and, newest to the roster, South Side Market, all of which are determined to keep farmed goods at the forefront.
Pittsburgh-area farmers markets
Click or hover on the map to see info on each farmers market including when, where and website links. For information on the best public transit route, go to Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s Plan a Trip page.
From the outside, it seems like this should be a piece of carrot cake. Make farmers market, farmers show up, patrons show up, everyone leaves happy. In reality, it’s not that simple. To ensure the happiness of patrons, markets need to showcase variety and quality; to ensure the happiness of vendors, markets need to attract a steady stream of patrons. To ensure a thriving market, managers need to do both. And farmers? They need to know that they have a realistic chance of making the long day away from the farm worthwhile.
“It’s kind of like planning an event,” said Bloomfield Saturday Market’s manager Heather Hanus.”You spend all week planning, you throw the event, next week you do it again, and you don’t know what you get from week to week.”
The farmers: Long day is about more than sales
For most farmers, the benefits of farmers markets are not found solely in sales numbers.
Tiny Seed Farm, founded by Todd Wilson in 2017, produces vegetables, mushrooms and flowers to sell at four markets weekly: Bloomfield, Lawrenceville, Sewickley and South Side. “It’s incredibly labor intensive and what we’re growing is perishable,” Wilson said of their market participation. “It’s a balance between the amount of time we have and the products we have and the people we have.”
About 30% of Tiny Seed’s revenue comes from markets, the rest from Community Supported Agriculture shares, or CSAs – subscription shares with regular allotments of produce. They also offer pick up sale from the farm, and work directly with restaurants. It might be easier to reroute the merchandise sold at farmers markets through the CSA. But the sales are just part of it.
“It’s a way in which people can come and keep something alive that’s absolutely necessary for the community. We have so many conveniences at our fingertips, it can be hard to remember that it can be challenging to get the things that you eat,” Wilson said “It would probably be easier to order your groceries from Whole Foods, but who are you actually supporting by doing that?”
Aeros Lillstrom is a co-owner of Who Cooks For You Farm, founded with her husband in 2009, growing certified organic vegetables, fruits, and herbs. They currently vend at Squirrel Hill and Bloomfield, weekends only, additionally selling CSA shares and wholesale to restaurants. Markets require seven employees and their truck, and committing to more isn’t feasible.
“There’s a lot of markets, every little neighborhood wants their own market,” she said, “but if you’re going to walk away spending four hours there and making a couple hundred bucks that doesn’t make sense.”
With perishable stock, limited staff and little time to waste, more markets aren’t necessarily merrier. Attendance gets spread out between so many options, transforming one busy day into four OK ones. There’s only so many employees to pull out of the field and trucks to take out of circulation. While the duration of a market for the public usually caps out at four hours, for farmers sometimes it means a 12-hour day.
The upside: This is different from shopping at Giant Eagle; no one is picking up a pepper and chucking it into a cart. Vendors answer questions, describe tastes, offer cooking suggestions. As an owner, Lillstrom is always there to represent the farm and guide patrons through the experience — even if that isn’t quite as important as the food.
The managers: Cooperation, standards could help
This season there are a few dozen markets in the Pittsburgh area, and aside from the trio directed by the city, they exist autonomously. Each market can serve its own neighborhood as it sees fit, whether it concentrates on bringing locally sourced food, arts and crafts, or entertainment.
The markets are separate in actuality, not so much in public perception. Patrons tend to group them together and the lack of connection isn’t necessarily something the consumer registers. An experience with one can shape the perception of all, and if your goal is fresh, locally produced food and you end up at a crafts-heavy spot on your first outing, it could hinder you from visiting another. One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.
PIttsburgh’s Longanecker, Bloomfield’s Hanus and Lawrenceville’s market manager Bryanna Johnson are taking steps to work cooperatively, beginning by exploring possibilities for collective marketing. That opens the door to sharing resources and information, developing education, and eventually maybe even establishing standards on farmed goods that will allow patrons to hold expectations and have them be met. The Farmers Market Coalition is a national nonprofit working to strengthen markets across the country; Longanecker cites their work as inspirational and a place to begin.
“The idea is not to shut anyone down,” said Longanecker. “It’s to bring them along.”
Supporting each other, markets can do more to educate the consumer, hopefully leading to patrons buying and consuming intentionally while developing a deeper appreciation of not just food, but ingredients, raw materials and farmed goods.
“We pay a ton of money for a dining experience, even if it’s mediocre, and then balk at a $5 head of lettuce,” Longanecker said. Ideally, she said, markets can help us understand why that head of lettuce is just as worth the expense as that $100 night out.
Resale: A tool, but with trust issues
There are no self-checkouts at farmers markets. If there were, no one would use them. The conversation is part of the charm, the patron with genuine interest in where their food came from and the vendor with the knowledge to satisfy.
“You want the patron to understand that they are supporting local production,” said Longanecker, “and you want the farmers to realize they need to produce in a way that is accessible and honest, so people continue to trust in it. If someone feels good about their purchases and then it turns out they’re actually buying blueberries from Peru, that creates a sense of distrust and disillusionment.”
The rumor of resale is a barrier to that trust. When crabapples (the people kind, not the fruit) want to make like a tree and throw shade, a common accusation is that vendors are more distributors than growers, buying cheap produce in bulk and representing it as their own at inflated prices.
This is not a myth; vendors buying mass market and selling as boutique do exist. But you won’t find them at places like South Side Market, where the one requirement for vendors was no resale – market manager and co-founder Gianna Donati not only has it in the application, but asks applicants herself. “Even for arts and crafts, everything has to be handmade,” Donati said. “Every single person, I ask, where are you located? Do you actually make your product? Do you grow all of your produce?”
Multiple factors change availability of produce from one week to the next so when one farmer may have an abundance of a crop but no market presence, another may have a regular market slot but a minimal harvest. Resale allows the first to move highly perishable goods without waste and the latter to supplement their stock. The buyer is offered more selection and variety.
“I understand the need to round out your basket with a trusted partnership,” Longanecker said, referencing the collaborative — rather than deceptive — use of resale. The vendor whose full table was bought at auction, for example, can fairly bring in Chambersburg peaches from the same friend they’ve purchased from for decades.
Some markets permit established farmers to include a percentage of resale goods with the stipulation of full transparency; signs say “from our friends at…” and cite the source.
The community: Face-to-face and multi-generational
Sturges Orchard grows peaches, apples, cherries, plums, and pears, selling at farmers markets only. “It’s a time management thing,” said founder Aaron Sturges. “I go, I sell them, I come home, I farm.”
With the minimal staff of his daughter and son, they go to Bloomfield, Lawrenceville, Bellevue, and on weekends a stand in the Strip District – they choose locations partially around timing, but also on what Sturges calls “the vibe.”
“It’s an opportunity to talk to people,” he said. “With each variety, I can describe the history, the science, the horticultural aspect. People can tell I’m not taking it out of a box from some far-off place and putting it on a stand.”
The difference between industrial farming and smaller farming is not just a matter of volume. It is, quite literally, a matter of taste. Sturges is able to grow for flavor, and from passion. The passion isn’t limited to the production of what’s grown, it extends to the ability to share it.
This seems to be a common thread connecting the farmers and managers who make the markets happen: it’s not just about the food, it’s about the community it creates.
“We’re able to support folks who want to shop local, know who they’re buying from, and ask questions about their food, and that’s a lot of people,” said Lawrenceville’s Bryanna Johnson. “It’s a face-to-face situation with the people who are growing.”
Market regulars and vendors in some cases go way back, decades even, and while their communications may only exist within the confines of the stalls, they have meaning fostered by food that goes beyond it. “We have customers that have been with us since 2009,” said Lillstrom. “We’ve seen people that we spent time with every week die. We’ve seen them be born.”
This is part of why farmers continue to participate, even though in many cases they have plenty of options to sell their products that are easier and more reliable.
“When you go and you talk to people, you’re excited about what you’re growing and so are they,” said Wilson. “It’s so challenging sometimes, but realizing people appreciate what you’re doing and seeing that, seeing them? It makes it worth it.”
Lissa Brennan is a writer who also makes a mean margarita, formerly worked for Farm to Table Western PA and can be reached at lissabrennan.lb@gmail.com.
