Farming Local Connections With Barton Creek Farmers Market
Austin’s longest-running farmers’ market continues to support small farms from a mall parking lot
By James Scott, Fri., March 1, 2024
Fresh produce, friendly faces, handmade goods, and a strong coffee scent wafting through the air. These are the sights and smells shoppers will find at Austin’s first and longest-running farmers’ market – every Saturday from 9am until 1pm in the Barton Creek Square parking lot. Barton Creek Farmers Market has been, as their website brags, endorsed by Wolfgang Puck (of frozen pizza fame) as well as secured eight total Best of Austin awards from this very Austin Chronicle. That decorated history continues in full force today.
The story of BCFM is very much intertwined with the story of many Lone Star farmers’ markets – in fact, a narrative shared by others around the nation. According to a contribution by Richard Croxdale to Glenn Scott’s oral history project People’s History in Texas, the 1970s spelled a decline for farmers’ markets across the United States. At the time, the USDA only counted 541 in the entire country. While federal laws were created to combat the markets’ extinction, as Croxdale writes, “down here in Texas, federal laws don’t amount to much.” Efforts by former Commissioner of Agriculture Jim Hightower and department member Gus Townes in 1983 to utilize direct marketing were what helped push farmers’ markets to the forefront of Texans’ minds throughout the Eighties.
Barton Creek Farmers Market rode that Eighties wave, opening in 1987 in the South Lamar Whole Foods parking lot. Current market manager Salila Travers took over operations when the previous owner moved to Hawaii, but as she told Voyage Austin, her interest in farming, nutrition, and the organic movement began in 1971. After reading An Agricultural Testament by Sir Albert Howard, she used her newfound knowledge to springboard small farms via the BCFM. “My primary goal is to increase the number of small farmers in Texas and everywhere,” Travers explained in an email interview with the Chronicle.
The market hopped around spaces for a few years before ultimately settling in its current home at Barton Creek Square mall. According to Travers, BCFM moved there in spring 2010 from the Toney Burger Center. Since then, they’ve focused on finding vendors who prioritize quality, sustainability, and health, and have good business reviews. “I choose small businesses that create a better world,” Travers added, “and ones that offer quality service in order to allow us to subsidize farmers.” Current BCFM vendors include loaf legends Jinx Bread, produce pros Fruitful Hill Farm, and this writer’s personal favorite vegan cheesemongers, Peace Cheese.
Marketgoers in Austin have the advantage of variety, which Travers said is what sets ATX apart from other Texas-based farmers’ markets. While she pointed to May as the peak for produce, BCFM’s website recommends winter seasonals like broccoli, turnips, spinach, and chard during these colder months. Of course, in Texas, weather is never as simple as the seasons, so the best way to find what’s fresh and tasty is to attend the market yourself. Strap on a reusable bag, grab an iced coffee – or maybe a free cup of yaupon tea from new vendor Lost Pines – and help support local farmers and craftspeople.
Barton Creek Farmers Market
Every Saturday, Barton Creek Square Mall
