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New South Loop Farmers Market Project's Sunday Takeover
Sunday was opening day for the South Loop Farmers Market's pop-up market at Chicago's Water Tower Place shopping mall. I'd never experienced a market location like this — chances are that you haven't either — and I mean that as a compliment.
This experiment was certainly a leap of geography and perhaps a leap of faith for the South Loop market's team.
Located on the North Side near the top of Michigan Avenue's Magnificent Mile, the market — scheduled to run on Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. through March 30 — is more than three miles by car from South Loop's Saturday (9 a.m. to 1 p.m.) indoor market at the Roosevelt Collection Shops at the other end of Chicago's downtown. It is also the only Chicago-area indoor market I know of that is located in a shopping mall, and one of only a few across the United States.
This likely couldn't have occurred during the heyday of Water Tower Place, when the towering mall was fully subscribed with stores and packed with shoppers. But the generational shift away from shopping malls, complicated by this decade's downturn in the Magnificent Mile's retail sector, left Water Tower Place with some empty spaces that the South Loop farmers market was eager to claim one day a week for the indoor season.
I'd been selfishly looking forward to Sunday's opening because Water Tower Place is so darn convenient to where we live in Lakeview East — a quick hop down DuSable Lake Shore Drive on the 146 bus. Sunday morning was very cold with light snow, so just having to walk to the bus stop on my corner and then across Michigan Avenue to the mall was a major plus.
But because of its unique situation and ample lineup of vendors, I can recommend this market to you even if you have to go a little out of your way.
As you can see in photo at the top, the market on the 4th floor surrounds the atrium that includes the mall's elevators and escalators.
There are produce vendors including Jacobson Family Farms (Antioch, Illinois), where I stocked up on seasonal root vegetables.
I enjoy any opportunity to shop with Bennett Farms, a sustainable, pasture-raised, veteran-owned livestock farm in Edwardsburg, Michigan.
There are also whole sections of prepared foods, including to-go meals and snacks. They include Chicago's Daly's Donuts and their newlywed co-founders, Alejandra and Colin Daly. Their baked donuts, from a recipe that Alejandra spent years perfecting, are treats, much lighter than fried doughnuts (not that I don't enjoy them too).
Right next to Daly's Donuts was Zeitlin's Delicatessen. They have some of Chicago's best bagels, but I was there for bialys (upper left corner of the photo), with which I grew up in the New York City area but are hard to find in Chicago. The bialy — which takes it name from the Polish city of Bialystock, where the rolls were invented — has a crispier crust than a bagel and has an indentation in the middle (instead of a hole) that often has a filling (Sunday's was a traditional onion and poppy seed).
One of the market's unique touches is its model-farm Kids Zone. I think anything that provides our youngest eaters with an understanding of where our food comes from is a good thing. And since I've never fully grown up myself, I had to restrain myself from going in and playing with those cows and chickens.
If you're not a downtown Chicago regular, Water Tower Place is very easy to find. It's located right across the street from its namesake, the famed Water Tower that was one of the few structures to survive the Great Fire of 1871. Its neighbor is the soaring 875 North Michigan building, previously known as the John Hancock Tower.