The Wednesday market is open from 2 to 7 p.m. at Kendrick Park in Amherst.
The grassy and shaded Kendrick Park in Amherst is a perfect site for a farmer's market, customers and vendors said. The Wednesday market opened last month.AMHERST – Violette Cody pointed from the radicchio and to the bins of lettuce all around her.
“Look at all this exquisite (food),” she said.
Cody was new to the Wednesday Farmer’s Market at Kendrick Park, but the market is new itself, opening for the first time on June 15. “It’s the most perfect place,” she said of the grassy, shaded site about a quarter of a mile north of the main downtown intersection. “It’s good for the goods, it’s good for the people.”
Since its opening, the market has grown in both customers and vendors. Now there are 18 vendors selling goods such as cheeses, grass-fed beef, soaps, syrups, berries, jams, flowers and produce.
Chez Albert, an Amherst restaurant, prepares and sells French-inspired food, and Kendrick’s Kitchen grills fresh vegetables and local grass-fed meats so people can eat at the park or take a meal home.
Amherst has had a Saturday market downtown for nearly four decades and has another – the North Amherst Farmer’s Market at Watroba’s parking lot – also on Saturdays.
Randi Stein of Amherst talks to her son Adam Stein who's visiting from Oregon as Caroline Pam, who owns the Kitchen Garden in Sunderland looks on. Pam sells all kinds of produce here at the new Kendrick Park Wednesday market in Amherst.This is the first weekday market, and from the way customers speak, there’s no such thing as too many markets.
Cody, who was born in Lithuania, remembers going to markets every day. She said the Kendrick market is very similar in that everything is fresh.
“It’s a perfect location for a farmer’s market,” said vendor Caroline Pam, who owns the Kitchen Garden with her husband Tim Wilcox in Sunderland. “People come shop, and picnic and hang out.”
She sells all kinds of produce from radicchio to beets, carrots and myriad other things.
Having prepared food “makes it a destination. I’m impressed with the different products here,” she said.
The market is open from 2 to 7 p.m.
The Kitchen Garden also participates in markets in Forest Park in Springfield, Northampton and Greenfield.
Randi Stein moved to town about four years ago from New Hampshire in part because of the farmers, farmland and the culture.
“When I heard (about the market) I made sure my week was organized to make sure I can get here,” she said. This way she can buy fresh on Saturday for a few days and then again on Wednesdays. “I’m going to keep coming,” she said.
Deja Carr and Emma Devene, part of the group Who’Da Funk It were playing the marimba while shoppers paraded through the markets. Music is part of the weekly offering.
“We play in town,” Carr said. “We like to busk.”