Third Avenue Village

Here are my top picks for this quaint farmer’s market:
#1 — Owen has the BEST organic* fruits and vegetables! Stop by and say «Hi Owen! What’s the pick of the week?» He will respond with a wealth of knowledge and gladly share tips on how to prepare a certain fruit of veg! (BTW — Owen is the vendor on the southwest corner of 3^rd & Center)
#2 — NOW! If you want some phenomenal preserves, condiments and HONEY — go see Ms. Tinkie, of Tinki & Co., WOW!!! She has the best avocado & buckwheat honey ever! She also has citrus honey and will probably be bringing other selections in the Spring and Summer months. Be sure to sample the goods so you know exactly what a delightful treat you are in for! Tell her, «the Happy Honey Lady» sent me — she’ll get a kick out of that.
If you need additional information, have comments, or suggestions, stop by the TAVA info tent and introduce yourself to Bob! He is a plethora of information and great to talk to!
*If you are adamant about having organic please be sure to ask the vendors you are considering purchasing from — they will let you know. However, I have had a mixture of both and the quality of each is quite exceptional.
Enjoy!

I love coming here with my mom whenever she is off = mother-​daughter bonding time. ;) We’ve been coming here for over 5 years!
My mom loves buying flowers here and I recommend the kettle corn! I like that they not only sell food, but also fruits and vegetables. I know there are some farmers markets that don’t sell fruits and vegetables, they just sell food? Like, where the fruits and veggies at? Everything sold here is inexpensive and all local.
I recommend giving this Farmers Market a try!

I’ve been driving by the sign for this farmer’s market for months. I put off going because I’ve been to some that were bad! Last week I finally decided to get there. So happy we went! It is a great little farmer’s market! I bought green beans from the farmer from Oceanside, best tasting green beans I’ve ever made. I used the Southern Green Beans recipe off of
. So glad he drove all the way down here! I told him to keep the change. Also bought a bunch of black grapes, grape juice drinks, bottled clover honey, asian pears, strawberry jams, corn (made Mexican corn!). I’m so thankful to be feeding my children real wholesome food. I must make sure to make room in the fridge for my next trip!

I decided to check out this Farmers Market tonight. It was small in comparison to other ones in San Diego but still a wonderful experience in Chula Vista. There was minimal traffic in the street fair. Easy to walk around. Parking was fairly easy, street parking. There were a few produce vendors with comparable prices to the OB vendors. There were flower, craft, specialty food vendors as well. There were about 8 – 10 hot food vendors. I tried the Filipino food stand and enjoyed the pancit, BBQ pork skewer and banana fritter. I also liked the bacon wrapped hot dogs! Delicious home made chipotle sauce! Overall, a decent farmers market.

tip: come at the end! can sweep the streets for cheap!
ice cream cones are only a buck at closing cuz the ice cream dude needs to clean out his machine. originally 2 bux.
none of the fruits are organic unless specified. one of the smaller farmers markets in SD. easy parking. not that many people. L&L bbq is there.

This is a really nice farmers market. They have fresh produce that is in the words of the Campbell’s commercials mmmm mmmm good.
The one beef I have with this FM is that it’s kinda small and they don’t have weird food for sale. They do have Baba Foods’ vendors and they have an insane amount of products for sale.
I usually take dates to FMs but this one is so slow that you would be done incredibly quickly and would probably end up in a nearby bar imbibing recreational beverages… actually this is a plus. Come here on a date then you can go to a nearby bar and imbibe adult recreational beverages.
Enjoy.
Three stars for size. Whoever says size doesn’t matter has clearly never been to a small FM or dated an cute little Asian girl.

After reading these reviews, I decided to check out the Chula Vista Farmer’s Market for a second time. It’s SMALL compared to the type of outdoor markets I prefer. Some people seemed to be there solely for the free samples of produce and prepared foods.
Warning about the Greek food stand: my gyro was not Greek tasting, but rather Mexican in that there were Mexican spices and salsas added. Weird. I supposed you can ask them to make your food Greek-​style, but you’ve been cautioned.
The Indian food stand has decent food, somewhat overpriced, and I would avoid the samosa’s in the future. They were deep-​fried triangle pockets filled with bland mashed potatoes. That’s it. No Indian flavors at all, and the accompanying cup of sauce was again Mexican in style.
I didn’t care for the kettle corn popcorn at all. Obviously the cook just adds a cup of plain white sugar to the kettle and the popcorn came out tasting bland with sugar, no contrasting saltiness or carmelization.
And the bar of Mexican nut candy from the stand nearby tasted like the peanuts had been slightly burnt before being coated with the brittle.
However, one extra star was given for the close-​by parking lot. I think I will go to better, larger local farmer’s markets in the future.

It’s nice to live so close to all of Chula Vistas goodness. I perused the booths and stuck my fingers into some great samples. I recommend this to any couple looking to spend some nice time together or just if you are looking for food that is fresher than your typical road kill at your local vons. :)

This Market has a great neighborhood feel and the food vendors have top notch grinds. The produce vendors have a great selection. The Downtown San Diego outdoor Farmer’s Market we hit up had nowhere near the selection of produce and food vendors of Chula Vista’s. Also the Parking is more plentiful and the people less pretentious.

If you’re in the neighborhood, you gotta come down to this farmers market every Thursday afternoon.
This farmer’s market is not the biggest, nor fanciest of all, but it definitely has a good characteristic that makes you want to come back every week.
I personally fell in love with the Indian food vendor, I love to get something you can’t make by yourself at home. I bought Yogurt Mint Dip and Spinach Naan, I’m so addicted now…
I got to try some produce and flowers next week, I have just gotten groceries the day before when I was there last time but I noticed price was better there!

I love coming here on Thursdays!
some important points:
— not too crowded but just enough for some people watchin’
— most of the people behind the stands are regulars and are sooo sweet
— because these people are so sweet they give you free little samples and goodies ;)
— there is this stand with carne asada that you can smell all the way from Tijuana… I am DEAD SERIOUS so def pick something up from there… mmmm
The produce is very good and open for bargaining if you are too cheap. Remember, there is no bargaining at the supermarket so why do it to a bunch of friendly people who work hard for their product and provide the community with something so delicious and fresh?
Anyways, this farmers market is very cute and def. the place to be at on a summer Thursday afternoon: D

This was slightly larger than I had expected.
Most of my feelings on this farmers market are thoroughly positive.
There were 8 – 10 fresh fruit and veggie vendors. Many of whom offer free samples of the wonderful eats. This included several flower and plant vendors.
there were about 4 prepared food vendors. these were things that you would buy and take home to use in your kitchen and eat. Things like pickles, garlic paste (very good by the way), flavored olive oils, and cheeses and Mediterranean foods.
There was about 12 hot food vendors. these ranged from sliced fruit and snowcones, to crepes, samossas, and tamales. there was the obligatory kettle corn vendor, and several others. It all smelled and looked soo good. Definately go on an empty stomach and bring an extra few dollars for the hot food.
There were easily 10 – 15 crafts, jewelery, and other item vendors. including a massage booth.
My one complaint. the space between the stands in the veggie section were only about 4 feet apart. If the stands were backed up onto the sidewalk, you could easily walk between the stands. I was trying to push a standard stroller and had to wait a few minutes to be able to merge into traffic.
I enjoyed it and will likely begin to visit at least once a month. I might just go there for dinner on Thursday nights from now on.
You will likely have to drive around for a bit in search of parking. but it is a nice little street fair/​market.

While billing itself as a Farmer’s market it only has approximately eight farmer’s stands selling produce eggs and flowers. The prices are better than the big chains; the selection of stuff is really cool for one of the grower’s agents. (I’m having multi colored tomatoes and squash blossoms chowed in olive oil. (it’ll taste like garlic and salt)) It has the vibe of a street fair for the walker crowd. And the walker crowd is here.
I guess when you retire and have nothing to do all day and just feel like getting out and doing something inexpensive, food shopping becomes the highlight of the day. So, forgive us who have fuller lives and kids getting into the frigging refrigerator and fanning themselves in the cool breeze softening the ice cream, making the meat smell bad and rotting the milk, for fidgeting like the spitting trouser snake is going to create a dark mark and a rusty zipper.
Plenty of fonda vendedores, even a dude doing crepes. Huge frigging ones spread with Nuttella? or some other ganache type chocolate.
I miss the ostrich rancher. You used to be able to buy ostrich meat and eggs. It was cool! Ostrich is a little lean and requires a healthy dose of fat to be really palatable.
And of course there’s the crafty booths. No food; no Tom.
Madness ensues.