Farm Fresh: Beach Farmer’s Market returns under bridge
There are reasons to give thanks during the holiday season.
The Beach Farmer’s Market is one of them on Fort Myers Beach.
Located under the Matanzas Bridge at Crescent Street and Old San Carlos Boulevard, this tightly packed market offers produce, seafood, flowers, unique handcrafted items and more.
It’s for the health conscious residents and visitors who seek a daily supply of farm-grown fruits and vegetables, fresh seafood that came off the boat the night before, nutritious breads and other related food or specialized items. One can also find assorted baked goods, plants, nuts, jams and jellies, kettle corn and more.
The Beach Farmer’s Market is open each Friday morning from 7:30 to 11 a.m. The open-air commerce began on the first Friday in November and will run through the last Friday of April (but will close on any Friday holidays during that period).
Since 2000, local vendors have sold their products in this unique location to happy attendees.
Two such vendors -Horace Brittain of Brittain Farms and Jim Cummings of Jim’s Shrimp and Seafood- have made their Friday morning home under the bridge since the market’s inception.
Brittain, who has the largest booth spot, travels to different market venues around Lee County -including Centennial Park in downtown Fort Myers, State Farmer’s Market on Edison Avenue six days a week and Alliance of the Arts on Saturdays- but keeps returning to the Beach to provide freshly grown produce to the Beach crowd.
“We do good here,” he said. “I grow what I sell at these markets. We have a lot of people who shop at this market who go back home and use their juicers.”
Brittain says his top sells are tomatoes, radishes, Swiss chard, spinach and green beans. He has 650 acres at Green Meadows off of Florida State Road 82.
“To me, there ain’t a secret to this. You kind of get to know what people want,” he said.
Cummings, a Pine Island resident, calls his Friday spot “a good market” and sells stone crabs, shrimp, smoked mullet and all-natural honey.
“The people here are great. I have good sales here each week and the bridge provides good shelter from weather,” he said.
Ralph’s Island Seafood was also on hand for the first market of the season and has been a steady market vendor. Vendors Trish Raber and Deborah Wyckoff said the first day at the market is usually slow but picks up each week as season progresses.
“We live on the Beach and our Dad owns Sanibel Seafood. He distributes to a lot of the restaurants down here. It’s more of a family-oriented business,” said Raber. We’re seeing a lot of early bird market attendees.”
Oltime’s German Bakery has been at the Beach market for five years. Ann James, who runs the stand for long-time Cape Coral business owner Fritz Linnenbach, was selling many sweets, breads and pretzels to market-goers.
“It’s a good market for us. We really like to bring our product to the people,” she said. “We are famous for our French bread. We even ship our all-grain breads to customers across the United States. They have no preservatives, sugar or dairy. It’s really healthy.”
Jason Wilhelm of Rope Soap, Inc. is a first time vendor at the Beach Farmer’s Market. He and his wife, Jenny, travel weekly from Naples to the Beach site to sell handmade aromatherapy soap on a rope. The all-natural, organic soap product is good for all kinds of skin issues, including eczema.
“We had $100 in sales (during the first 1 hours of vending on the first day),” he said. “Out of all the people I talked to about markets, this place was said to be the most laid back.”
Wilhelm began the couple’s entrepreneur enterprise with a thought in the shower.
“My first creation was Dope on a Rope,” he said about his marijuana pot leaf-looking soap. “I ran out of the shower on Thanksgiving Day and told my wife about it.”
Lucia Valdez of Valdez Produce in Immokalee is another first timer at Beach Farmer’s Market. Her assistant, Patricia Cardenas, who has vended at the market, told her about it.
“We pick our own produce and are very picky about what we sell,” she said. “We sell peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, fresh green beans, cucumbers and all types of other produce.”
More vendors are expected each week until the Beach market peaks in January and February.
Parking for the market is located under the Matanzas Pass Bridge and is free until 11:30 a.m.
According to history records, the original Farmer’s Market was open in Los Angelos in the summer of 1934 at the property known as Gilmore Island at the corner of Third and Fairfax. Several farmers backed their trucks onto the empty land and displayed their produce on the tailgates of their vehicles. Customers soon arrived, parked their cars and roamed among the trucks buying fruit, vegetables and flowers.
With Farmer’s Markets already firmly in place in Cape Coral and Fort Myers, Beach officials began Farmer’s Market to have their own marketplace so that residents and visitors wouldn’t have to drive into surrounding cities for fresh produce and other merchandise.
“It’s nice and cool under the bridge,” said Raber.