I was pretty excited when my sister in law mentioned that she wanted to head downtown and visit the West Side Market while we were visiting Cleveland. Where I live we have some smaller markets, but nothing on the scale of what they have built here. I am sure if you live in a big city, markets like this aren't all that uncommon, but for a guy from the middle of nowhere, it was pretty fantastic.
Things were already hopping on Saturday morning by the time we made it to the market, so we had to park a short distance away near Great Lakes Brewing Company it's one of the more mainstream craft breweries in the area, and they have made a name for themselves with some high quality beers.
They actually have a pretty extensive facility in the downtown Cleveland area complete with a large patio area for seating as well as an broad indoor area. If we hadn't been on our way to the market and then off to softball games, we likey could have spent a good deal of time here.
The market building itself (as you can see in the opening photo) is actually pretty amazing. The architecture reminded me a lot of the Hall of Justice from the old Superfriends cartoon for some reason. I think it has to do with the arched roof line and the pillars on each side. Look it up if you don't know what I am talking about.
Although it was mid-morning, there were still some vendors that were just getting set up outside the market. There are actually vendors across the street selling things like soaps, candles, and things like that, but the majority of the market is comprised of two sections across the street. If you look really closely, you can see some meat cooking on the small grills of this booth. The smells were amazing!
The West Side Market is the oldest continuously operating public market in Cleveland. It was established in 1912 and provides a variety of goods including prepared foods, meats, breads, dairy products, baked goods, and even kitchen cookware. This first section we went through is actually just outside of the main market square, but it is connected via a couple small walkways.
This long corridor was filled with nothing but produce and vendors trying to sell their wares (quite aggressively in some cases). We had no more than stepped foot in the place and a guy to our right was handing everyone pieces of cantaloupe on a stick. I'm not a fan, so I dodged a bullet there, but the guy had some story about how they put honey in the ground where they grow them so it is the sweetest cantaloupe you have ever eaten.
Still a hard pass for me!
As I said, I have been to farmers markets before, so the idea here wasn't new to me, but I was quite surprised to see just how high quality the produce was. Just look at those onions in the photo above, it doesn't get much fresher than that does it?
After traversing through the main produce corridor, we walked around the perimeter of the building before entering the market proper on the other side from where the produce was. I didn't realize it at the time, but we could have just taken a few steps back down the corridor and cut back into the market. Oh well.
The market was bustling with activity and given the extreme temperatures outside, it was already pretty hot inside the market. I was constantly wiping the sweat from my brow as we walked around inside the market and did our best to dodge the other visitors.
I have a few pieces of advice for you if you ever get a chance to visit the Westside Market in Cleveland. Actually, it's just three things that you are definitely going to want to bring with you, a cooler, your money, and your appetite. @mrsbozz and I both agreed that if we would have been heading right home instead of off to softball games for the rest of the day, we likely would have spent a lot more money here.
Everything just looked so amazing. The meats all looked so fresh, and the baked goods looked beyond delicious. It was almost a sensory overload with all the amazing stuff to look at as well as the comotion happening around us. I can only imagine what the famous open air markets in some of the countries outside the US must be like.
It was pretty amazing to see the variety of different goods that the vendors had on sale. Pasta sauces? Yes, there was a vendor that had a large variety of those, as well as all different kinds of homemade pasta for you to try. How about different kinds of bacon? Yep, there was a vendor that had that as well.
There was even a vendor that had a huge array of hummus flavors that you could pick from. I probably would have gotten a few of those if we had a way to keep it refrigerated.
I had to stop and take a photo of the ground chicken and turkey they had on sale because quite honestly, it was some of the cleanest ground chicken I have ever seen. Of course, I know they are only going to put their best product on display. They are trying to sell you something after all, but just look at how fresh and clean all that meat looks. If you are a vegetarian or vegan, sorry, just keep scrolling.
I did feel that the prices were pretty common across the board compared to what we pay where I live. It wasn't like you were getting a huge discount on your food, just maybe a bit better quality. If you lived right in the city, I think it would be easy to stop here and just pick up what you need for the evening versus heading to the local supercenter to get your groceries.
As I mentioned before, the architecture of the building was pretty impressive. I stopped to take some pictures of the interior and tried not to get in anyone's way. By the time we were finishing up our visit, this place was packed with very little space to navigate the quadrants of booths that they had set up.
I actually have a few more stories about the West Side Market, but I will save that for another post, so be sure to check back!
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