Neighborhood News: Indoor Farmer’s Markets provide Farm-to-Table offerings year-round
Farmer’s Markets are a staple of Chicago communities in the summer, but did you know that Chicago has indoor markets operating during the winter months?
After all, the harvests of local farmers continue throughout the year!
In Avondale, Green City Market (GCM) 3031 N. Rockwell Street, operates an indoor market nearly every Saturday, from 8 am-1pm, through March 22. (Note: They are closed January 4.)
GCM was founded 26 years ago by the late food writerAbby Mandel, who worked with chefsSarah Stegner, Rick Bayless, and many others to catalyze the culinary community’s support of local food. They’ve brought together farmers, bakeries, butchers, and small-batch producers under one roof.
Stegner, owner of Prairie City Cafe, was known for vegetable soups starring exceptional produce like over-wintered spinach. “In the wintertime, the stems freeze, and when they do, they become sweeter and sweeter, so it’s like candy,” she explained to WTTW in a 2024 GCM profile.
Accessible Food for All
“Access to local food is a right, not a privilege,” Mandy Moody, the executive director of GCM, told WTTW in a 2024 profile. “Everyone should have access to locally grown, sustainably produced food.”
To this end, according to their website, expanding access to nutritious, local, sustainably-produced food is one of the core pillars of GCM. They welcome and triple Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits (also known as Link in Illinois or EBT nationally.)
Shoppers with SNAP/Link cards receive triple the value of their benefits up to $25 at Green City Market. That means when folks spend $25 of SNAP benefits using a Link card, they receive $75 to spend: $50 in GCM For All vouchers or tokens that may be used on any SNAP-eligible item and $25 in Link Up Illinois vouchers that are restricted to fruits and vegetables only. GCM will continue to double the value of any benefits spent past $25 on a single market day.
Additionally, ince 2012, Green City Market has partnered with food pantries like Nourishing Hope (formerly Lakeview Pantry) and the Love Fridge to recover food grown by local, sustainable farmers and provide it to Chicagoans facing food insecurity all over the city. Since 2020, Green City Market has supplemented these donations with produce grown in their 5,000 square foot teaching garden.
At the end of each market, farmers donate unsold produce, herbs, meats, eggs, dairy products, bread, and non-perishable items — food that otherwise may have gone to waste — directly to feed community residents facing food insecurity.
For more information about the Green City Market, click here.
Logan Square Farmer’s Market
Every Saturday through March 29, the Logan Square Farmer’s Market (LSqFM), 2537 N. Pulaski Road, is open from 9am –1pm.
Powered by the Logan Square Chamber of Commerce, the market, according to its website, provides an outlet for nutritious, conscientiously grown and produced local foods, as well as education about these foods, for the community regardless of income.
“We love our farmers, and we serve more and more farmers every year,” Nilda Esparza, executive director of the chamber, told Eater.com in 2024. “The Chamber supports farmers by connecting them to the city dwellers in Logan Square — and many other Chicago neighborhoods — because it believes that this in turn supports businesses and residents in our community.”
In 2008, they became the first Farmer’s Market in the State of Illinois to process EBT for LINK Card Users. This program is also known as the, “Double Match Program” or “Link Up Program,” and is organized by Link Up Illinois.
Link purchases are matched dollar-for-dollar for fresh fruits and vegetables.
For more information about the indoor Logan Square Farmer’s Market, click here.
The History of Food Markets
According to the Encyclopedia of Chicago History, whiskey may have been the first manufactured “food” product. By 1812, members of the Kinzie clan had set up a still to sell their product from a shack. The first brewery was established in 1833. A market at the corners of Lake and State Streets was superceded by a municipal market hall built in the middle of State Street in 1848.
As the Industrial Revolution created an ever-increasing number of processed foods, grocery stores replaced the open-air markets.
One notable exception was the Maxwell Street open-air market that flourished from the 1890s to 1980s.
However, a century later, rising interest in fresh foods led to the re-appearance of farmers’ markets in the city in the late 1980s. During the growing season, local produce was trucked in and sold by farmers in various locations throughout the city. Soon, there were hundreds of Farmer’s Markets throughout Chicago communities, most of them running May-October annually. That’s why indoor markets are precious commodities in winter months.
Happy, healthy 2025, everyone!!
Alison Moran-Powers and Dean’s Team Chicago
