Last Thursday as I was driving on San Fernando Road, I noticed that there were no signs advertising the Farmers Market.  Nonetheless, I knew where it was located and I arrived around 3:45 pm. At this time, the market wasn’t too crowded as I strolled around.

However, I did notice some things that struck me as odd.  First of all, there was a soft serve ice cream truck from Lancaster.  It got me thinking: how bad are things with the economy, when an ice cream man has to drive 35 miles to sell his product?

Next, I noticed that a vendor was selling t-shirts.  Across from the t-shirt broker, a person had a bouncer/jumper for kids.  Price I believe was $3 per kid.  Another solicitor was selling fake plants and near them was a person selling roasted corn. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to roast my own corn, a little salt, pepper, margarine, wrap it in foil and grill for about 15 minutes!

I found the produce to be of good quality and the aroma arising from the tamale vendor was outstanding as well. In addition, there were vendors selling eggs and flowers. The prices were competitive with those from the COC farmers market.

As with the COC farmers market, I observed a person from a bakery setting-up.  The bakery was located in Oxnard, this person drove at least 50 to 60 miles out of their way.  As before, the products did not look like they were baked that day.

I found the size of both Farmers market to be relatively the same.  The COC market is set-up as two aisles as compared to the Newhall Market, which consists of one aisle running the length of the entire block.

Overall, the Newhall market struck me as more of a swap meet feel, due to the variety of products offered t-shirts, fake plants, ice cream in addition to the produce sold.

I would like to see both markets add an organic butcher.  Given our love of grilling, smoking and barbequing, I think this would make it the ideal place to purchase organic pork, poultry, fish and beef.

In addition, the city should attempt to set-up a farmer’s market in the industrial center from approximately noon to 2pm, to allow the employees during their lunch break to purchase the various items offered up for sale.  Afterwards, these same vendors could drive over to Newhall and set-up.  I think this would give them the opportunity to increase sales, while not increasing their costs by much.  This would allow them to sell their respective products for six hours instead of four.

Last week as I was driving to work in West Los Angeles; I observed that they have a Farmers Market off of Sepulveda Boulevard and Westwood.  I hope to attend the market within the next two weeks and provide a report along with photos provided by my cell phone.

Michael Cruz

Note: I’ve attached my pictures from a previous review of the Newhall Farmer’s Market- Jeff

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 Well it finally happened!  My family and I visited the Farmers’ market at COC last weekend - I didn’t know what to expect. Read the rest of this entry »

In ‘n Out is a Southern California icon. People east of us, all 260 million of them, don’t have In ‘n Out Burger, but here in Santa Clarita, we have three, count ‘em three of them! Even my vegetarian friends pine for a Double Double, and In ‘n Out remains my favorite burger in the SCV. But therein lies the problem. Is there a difference between the three In ‘n Outs in the SCV? And if so, which one is best?

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