Every Saturday, from 12 pm to 2:30 pm, the Olohan Alley transforms into the Village of Arroyo Grande’s weekly farmers’ market. Locals fill the lot, purchasing from vendors selling fresh produce and colorful paintings.
Valley Grown has sold their wares at the Arroyo Grande Farmers’ Market for the past three years. Mission College Prep senior, Cyrus Creidanus, manages their booth every other week.
“I sell for one of my friends who sells their own pistachios, walnuts, and almonds,” Creidanus said. “I will sell it to anyone who’s at the farmers’ market. I start at the San Luis Obispo Farmers’ Market, and then I’ll go to the AG Farmers’ Market.”
Despite the plethora of grocery stores in the area, many locals opt to shop at farmers’ markets such as the one in Olohan Alley.
“I don’t go to Vons anymore,” frequent Arroyo Grande Farmers’ Market customer Christine Tuthill said. “I don’t go to any place like that. I buy fresh food.”
Tuthill finds a sense of community in the Arroyo Grande Farmers’ Market.
“It’s the camaraderie,” Tuthill said. “It’s the people that sell here.”
Although the market only extends the length of a small parking lot, it has served locals for years.
“This was the first market that I went to as a kid,” frequent Arroyo Grande Farmers’ Market customer Griffin Newell (‘16) said. “I was doing markets by myself as soon as I was driving, so as soon as I was 16, I was doing markets here on the weekend. And so I just grew up doing it. [The Arroyo Grande Farmers’ Market] is from my childhood.”
Locals run the market for locals. Grocery chains use third party processing and packaging companies, but farmers’ market’s goods are sold to customers directly by farmers’, florists, and artists.
“Fresh food, and being able to meet the farmers—they’ll go out to the yard and cut something for you,” Tuthill said. “It’s a huge difference [from chain grocery stores].”
