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Chicago's Uptown Farmers Market: A Walk in the Park on City Streets
- Bob Benenson
- May 15
- 2 min read
Once Overshadowed by El Tracks, Uptown Now is a Pretty Neighborhood Market
Chicago's Uptown Farmers Market was created in 2021 by the team behind the Chicago Market project to provide an outlet for healthy, local food in the Uptown community while their (still ongoing) effort to build out a food co-op wore on.
Its initial location was at the historic Gerber Building, the planned venue for the store that once served as the entrance to the adjacent Wilson elevated train station. Then, the market wasn't exactly inviting: Behind the building and under the El tracks, it was dark and often noisy as trains passed directly above. I've called it the most Soviet farmers market I've ever seen.
Everything changed — for the better — when Uptown Farmers Market moved a few blocks away to Sunnyside Mall, a four-block stretch of Sunnyside Ave. between Beacon and Magnolia, that had been closed off to traffic in 2021 after a years-long campaign by local residents.
The new home for Uptown's weekly Wednesday market (2:30 to 7 p.m) could hardly have been a bigger contrast from its rather dreary beginnings. Surrounded by modest-sized apartment buildings and shaded by tall leafy trees, with splashes of color from floral plantings, it is one of prettiest farmers markets in the Chicago region.
With its relatively small space, Uptown isn't a market where you'll find the biggest name in local food. But it has great produce from Los Rodriguez Farm, a family operation in Eau Claire, Michigan, that over the past few years has expanded across the region's farmers market landscape; the nearly ubiquitous Stamper Cheese, a broker that sells excellent cheese, mostly from Wisconsin producers; and a variety of creative local food artisans.
Click the button below for more information about the market, including its vendor list.
My visit this past Wednesday (May 13) was mostly social because I was well-stocked at home, so my haul was small: buttermilk blue cheese from Stamper and pickles from Vargo Brother Ferments, a local Chicago producer of pickles and other fermented product.
Uptown was my second market visit of the day, which started with a walkabout at Green City's Wednesday market in Lincoln Park. My friend Ernesto Rodriguez of Evanston's El Molcajete Sauces joined me and I spent the time introducing him to vendor friends (hence no market photos).
My small haul, from right: lettuce and hothouse heirloom tomatoes from Nichols Farm and Orchard (Marengo, Illinois); a pork steak from Jake's Country Meats (Cassopolis, Michigan), from which I first learned about a decade ago that pork steak is a thing; and in the bags, a gift from Ernesto: his uniquely delicious organic tortilla chips fried in coconut oil.
The outdoor market season across the region is booming. Click below to get Local Food Forum's Market Tracker to find a market convenient to you.
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