The night’s in Denver are getting remarkably cooler. Which means the days are starting to break their summer-highs and eventually the cooler seasons will be upon us. Schools are back in session. Pretty soon all of the leaves will fall, be raked and left to compost over the winter. And the Farmer’s Markets in the area will push out their last big offerings of the season. 

Then it will snow, and the markets will hibernate for a season. And I will once again have to step foot in a Safeway. It is one of a million reasons I ask: “Why doesn’t Denver have a public market?”

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Last month I was spoiled. During my tour of the balmy west coast, every other block had some sort of public, open food source. In Seattle it was the ever-touristy, fish-tossing Pike’s Place Public Market. In the Castro district of San Francisco street corners were packed with produce markets, baskets of fruits and vegetables facing the street, all of it incredibly cheap. Food was available, it was everywhere! Never was there a day when fresh food just wasn’t an option. Veggies, meats, cheeses and coffees. All of them sold by people who have a vested relationship with the product.

When I think of a Public Market I am reminded of an Indiana-Jones atmosphere.  Chasing people through the streets, crashing cars through baskets of grains, live chickens dodging the footsteps of the market-goers. For many, this kind of market is a daily stop. It is what they are eating for that day. They aren’t picking up dinner, they are supplementing ingredients. It is the modern foraging – find the gems within the market. No store guides or neat rows pointing you to the milk and bread aisle.  At a public market, you eat what your fellow man was able to provide. It is a beacon of community, a glutton of responsibility, a damn good thing.

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There is a little noticed sign which hangs above the busy intersection of Park Avenue and larimer Street here in Denver. It reads “Larimer Street Markets” It has a web address which is now defunct at Larimerstreetmarkets.com. Currently, the entire city block behind the sign is a parking lot which is only ever full when the Rockies play down the street at Coors Field.

The sign is old, but still standing, and the current marquee advertises monthly parking rates. Whatever the Larimer Street Market used to be, it was long before my time. I can imagine, though, this lot being a myriad of stalls, canopies, baskets of goods and legions of pedestrian customers arriving to buy, sell, barter and trade for what they needed. Why not throw in a few buskers? It’ll only add to the charm.

Instead I find myself at a Farmer’s Market just about every weekend during the summer season. Whether it’s at the half-dozen or so around the Denver area or up the hill at Boulder. Some have better wares than others. All are managed in some capacity or another. Demands for produce early in the season force organizers to allow out-of-state produce (not the point, people!) to be sold. Another market will allow it too, but only if the out of state produce is clearly marked.

What should a public market be? How about a celebration of here? Want to know what Denver is? It is right here in this Market.

Wednesdays and Saturdays the Cherry Creek Farmer’s Market always seems to be the place to go. Already nestled in a bustling shopping area (surrounded by a high-end retail mall, a Whole Foods, and several streets of fashionable stores, the market is just another stop for the affluent. For a while, this market was good. But the demands of the shoppers caught up with them. “We want fresh produce, in early May!” they shouted. And the market responded, trucking in produce from California. Food they were just as well off getting across the street at the supermarket where it could also be sold to them by a person who had nothing to do with the preparation of that vegetable.

The market gets bigger. The ratio of stalls-to-food-dealers shrinks. Lots are taken up by the trendy food trucks and stalls offering back massages and spinal assessments, local businesses that have nothing to do with local, or food, or community and who are just there because that’s where the people are.

I want to say they aren’t all like that. But every farmer’s market as the element of the “what the hell are you doing here?”

***

Farmer’s Markets aren’t just a trend in urban settings, they are a necessity. In a way, they force us to be a little more responsible with our food. It creates that connection with the farmer and the understanding that this ear of corn was produced on that acre. In a way, you’re eating the dirt you live in. How is that not great?

But the Market’s are only open a day or two a week, and only in the warm, luxurious months. If they were open year round, I think people would have a much better understanding of food being “out of season” and how unnatural it is to be eating a ripe, red tomato in the dead of January. Or how weird it is to be eating anything citrus in the state of Colorado. Seeing what is available locally, year round, would get people thinking. They would probably think: “How can I get more tasty oragnic food, locally, year round?”

Really, it’s not impossible. It just requires some investment.

So what is keeping Denver from having a year-round Public Market, open 7 days a week?

Well:

1) Space. It’d probably have to be an indoor/outdoor space that is cheap and accessible by all.

2) The public kind of has to want it. How many days out of the week have you thought/felt “Ugh, I don’t want to bother with cooking?” You do all of your shopping at a grocery store out of convenience. You buy everything there because, well, everything is there.  Of course, there is the sacrifice of quality, the uncertainty of knowing where the food came from or if there are any evil GMOs in it. But, hey, you don’t really have the time to bother with anything else, right?

3) More food will need to be produced. Which means more local farms. Which means the city needs to get around to sanctioning such a thing. 

4) A relinquishment of the “Weird.” Every month or so in Denver there is the Homemade Handmade Fair. We call it, secretly, “the Hippie Market.” At one of the inaugural runs there was a woman selling homemade deodorant (but clearly not wearing any. Or worse). There was also a gentleman offering to either tell you a joke or sharpen your knife, and a few people selling clothes they stitched themselves and preserves from last year. Subsequent events were much more comprehensive. Foods and clothing and beverages of all kind. It was odd, but the vibe was good. Market in Denver = More good vibes.

What kind of sacrifice and accommodations would you be willing to make to use a public market for most of your routine shopping? Do you think something like this would work in Denver (or wherever you happen to live)?