Essex St Market

What a great market! It’s right around the corner from our hotel and it’s perfect for anything! They have so much fresh fruit and many prepackaged fruit cups ready to eat. There was a coffee shop, bakery, bread company, taco stand, fresh seafood and meat Dept. A very extensive choice of beverages and pretty much everything else. There is even a restaurant Essex to dine at. Very convenient

I like this little place… I love the feel of a market (I wish it was more like the Public Market in Seattle but you can’t have everything you want).
It has your general groceries (not everything) but the fruit and veggies are what I actually got excited about… These items actually looked fresh-​since moving to NYC I have notice the most disgusting, wilted and over priced produce ever… unless you go to Whole Paycheck (AKA WholeFoods) I got some very fresh oranges and strawberries on this trip! What a delight at a decent price).
I didn’t have a lot of time to mill around but the cheese place looks divine and so does the bread place I’ll have to check those out later… Over a good feel and good prices-I’ll be back.

A few nice shops. I especially like the place that sells chocolate.

This place is cool. I wrote a review about it!

Sad to see what happened to the Essex street market, It uses to be busy with more shops. The foot traffic was slow and a lot of space is available for rent. The only shop I liked was the bread shop called Pain D’avignon and the Japanese store. This little indoor store has the potential to be great again only time will tell.

I go everyday. Fresh food and friendly people.

Absolutely love this historic market in the Lower East Side. Highly recommend Pain D’Avignon, Luca & Bosco, and TraLaLa, but really the entire market is full of yummy goodness. Not very crowded and had a laid back vibe.

Interesting little marketplace that reminds me of the Florentine «Mercato Centrale», essentially a market for many vendors to sell their wares, from bakeries to mini supermarkets, meats, fishermen, etc.
It’s a decent sized place, and it’s not that crowded (I went from 2−4PM on a Sunday), so it was a nice time to relax away from the rush of NY crowds. The tiny bakery on the easternmost side of the market was delicious – try their almond croissant and their cranberry walnut! They also have this walnut cheese bread that was quite delicious.
They serve La Colombe coffee in the bakery (forgot the name, sorry!), so that’s a plus.
The market is a cute place to do some light shopping, cheap deals, and SUPER fresh fish, if you’re into buying fish.

Lapin and I came here on a Friday afternoon before our dinner reservation at Seoul Chicken. The indoor market was packed with vendors peddling their goods. A couple of stores were closed or closing by the time we arrived. Some of the vendors had a lot of stuff crammed into a small space which made it hard to navigate. However, it was still a fun experience and we would definitely visit again. We picked up some fresh bread, cilantro/​parsley, a couple of apples, bananas, and fresh fish. It was a bit more expensive than in other places but the food seemed like good quality.

big marketplace. sometimes i find weird produce here that has eluded me at every other venue. its way past Rhubarb season and i wanted some for a cider i am fermenting and one of the vendors had some fresh rhubarb! lots of great food in here, less fancy than Chelsea Markets.

I love this supermarket! Conveniently located on Essex an Delancy st middle size grocery is a incredibly. They always have a big fresh selection of fruits, vegetables, meats, fish and other house items. It is open every day for a long hours (8am-​7pm) and all the businesses are priced very reasonable compared to the otherones near by.
Defiantly a 5 star.

The mamey fruit is in town!!! It may look like one of those decoy «fake garden rocks in which you hide your spare set of house keys in» as Rick C. put it, but isnt it whats on the inside that counts?
This definitely holds true for the mamey fruit which is gloriously delicious in flavor as well as having a stunning sunset orange colored flesh.
Cherry lovers listen up! This is a gift from the fruit gods if you hate the act of eating individual cherries and depitting each one in your mouth. The mamey fruit actually tastes like cherries wif hints of vanilla and honey. It is easier to eat than a papaya and is a pleasure to be able to savor the flavor sans pits. So enjoy!
$ 3.49-$ 4.99/lb

I love this little market, I originally came here because I was looking for a lox bagel near my boyfriend’s brother’s apartment in LES. Essex St Market has everything you could want in a small farmer’s market-​like place. I come here for Davidovich Bakery to get my lox, Tra la la juice for fresh squeezed juice, and right across the hallway for some delicious cake balls.

This place is a Lower East Side classic. I particularly love coming here a couple of times a week in the mornings, and often will swing by a few of the different stalls to assemble a breakfast or early lunch.

This is the coolest market ever. I absolutely love the variety of foods and groceries under one roof. If you want a market with variety, go to wholefoods. But if you want a market with variety while wanting to feel like you’re in a foreign country, this is the place. I always come to this place when needing Latino products, fiending for homemade Greek and Japanese food, a haircut, or cheese. Bless this market because it is one of only 2 places downtown that sell ñame (special yam) and culantro (not to be confused with cilantro). Love this place.

I love the fact that I can get food and groceries and bone broth* and a matcha latte and a haircut** all in one place.
That said, I don’t really shop here that often. Why? It’s a bit expensive (although everything is probably fresher) and it’s a bit confusing. Even though I’ve been coming here for years, I’m still confused as to which shop owns which part of the market.
But some of my favorite shops in here: Shopsin’s, Formaggio Essex, Ni Japanese Delicacies, Davidovich Bakery and Tra La La Juice Bar.
It’s going to be bittersweet when the market moves to its new location across the street-​ish in the next few years — this location has been here for longer than I’ve been alive, but it’ll be nice for all the booths to expand and have more space to sell more stuff. (And as long as all of my favorite shops move along with the market, I’ll survive the extra block or two it takes to walk over).
—–
*Not that I’d ever buy the bone broth. Why is this a new craze again?
**Same with the haircut. I actually think it’s a barbershop and not a salon so they don’t do women’s hair, but still.

The Essex St Market is a collection of food vendors, grocers and small shops all in one building You can find pretty much anything here and everything is reasonably priced. Many of the vendors sell a wide range of grocery items and produce, but there are also speciality shops that sell just ice cream, meat, bakery items, etc. You can find just about anything here. This is my one stop shop and because it’s right around the corner from me, I go nearly every day.
If you’re a food snob and require organic food then this place may not be for you. The fruits and vegetables are decent and much cheaper than your all natural grocer. It feels good to support family-​run business rather than paying way too much at Whole Foods.

Enjoy this place, while it lasts.
Once upon a time in NYC, there were corner grocery stores in neighborhoods that weren’t chains. They were owned by families, who many times, lived in the apartment above the store or near by. Those were shitty times, because although most things were still «organic», smartphones and almond milk weren’t invented yet.
A tad dated in design and slightly gully, it’s charming from a nostalgia sense. Old and new school collide at the meat aisle, where a butcher shop run by Latin guys sit across the high quality butcher stand of the white guys with beards wearing skinny jeans. It’s not West Side Story, but rather old school, native, New Yorkers vs. the transplants that have reshaped the culture of the city for better and worse in the last two decades at an alarming rate… This is NYC, right here on this aisle. There is something for everybody at the market.
Decently priced produce and canned/​boxed products lines shelves for the common man. Latin products stand next to a booth selling hipster tacos that’s across from fresh breads and sweets at the bakery that’s next to a cheese shop that’s near the Japanese snack stand… The institution that is Shopsin’s greets you at the south entrance.
I «try» not to shop the chains, whenever possible. Lets face it, that shit is hard now, because the city has turned into one big ass strip mall in that the chains, like the people from the midwest and beyond, are invading like the plague. I get herbs, produce and spices here from one of the two stands that sell them. The oxtails for my stews, I grab from Luis’ Meat stand and are a «tad» cheaper then other joints in the city. Heritage Meat Shop has great stuff and i’m a regular. So does Nordic Preserves the stand next to it that has amazing Scandinavian products, including different flavored lox and Swedish meatballs that are dope. New Star and Rainbo’s fish counters always have somthing I want at reasonable prices.
If I didn’t work so close by, it would be hard to justify trekking down here from uptown. However, my NY sense of community pulls me to this place after work. I’d rather give my hard earned money to hard working New Yorkers, whenever I can. But, I’m not gonna lie… each year that gets harder with the economic challenges we all face living in this city we love, but doesn’t love us back.

Eschewing the sterile, modern aesthetics of Chelsea and Gotham West Markets, Essex St Market is a little slice of the old, tenement-​filled, LES – filled with richly diverse European foods, cultures and characters (with some other regions thrown in). You could lose a day exploring the shops, and I must admit to being slightly envious of the people who live nearby.
We didn’t buy much, but I did try Buca’s goat cheese with brownie and rosemary olive oil ice-​cream. Very, very tasty. Next time I trek over here, I have resolved to grab some cheeses and olives, preferably with names I can’t pronounce.

It’s no longer a conflict of interest if I review the Essex Street Market (I think), so here goes. This spot is such a wonderful mix of old and new food businesses, different personalities, different dreams. Many of Essex’s vendors are people who decided to hit the pause button on their old professional lives and took a chance on what they were passionate about.
The Essex Market complex was built in the ‘40s as a push by Mayor LaGuardia to get pushcarts off the streets. Today, the market has been condensed to just one building, and the remaining buildings sit vacant. What’s left is no Reading Terminal Market or Pike Place… And it’s not really tourist-​friendly in that if you walk in, don’t expect to be just shown where to go to get your food. (You’ll also have to search harder in the drab space to find a public restroom — 2^nd floor for the ladies.)
— Shopsin’s (
), the only business inside with a true seating area, is well-​known to have an insane menu of 100+ kooky items, and Mr. Shopsin himself yelling at you from the kitchen.
— Luca & Bosco (
) has a cart in the market’s northern corner and makes top-​notch eggless ice cream in fun flavors.
— Brooklyn Taco (
) serves a mean kale and potato taco. I know, I hate myself for loving it too.
— Heritage Meats (
) sells sustainably farmed American meats, and is owned by the same man who produces Heritage Radio Network, which you may recognize as the premier radio network for sustainable food programming.
— Ni Japanese (
) provides a crazy variety of homemade, ready-​to-​go vegan Japanese foods.
Roni-Sue’s Chocolates (
), Pain D’Avignon (
), and Saxelby Cheesemongers (
) have all become powerhouses in the NYC food scene. Essex has also recently welcomed a florist, a soup company (
), and a bagel shop (
) (who had successfully sued Dunkin’ Donuts over its use of the word «artisan»). There are other businesses, but a barbershop, religious trinkets shop, and art gallery (
) round it out. Look forward to a banh mi stall next from one of the guys behind An Choi (
).
Beyond these new, generally prepared-​food vendors are the older guys, some of whom have been operating in this building for the past 30 years: fish, meat, produce, and grocery stalls, each serving different parts of the neighborhood demographic. It can be confusing, but note that each business has its own counter; you can’t check out everything at once. Could Essex eliminate these and bring in higher-​end grocers selling chia seed lemonade and organic pasture-​raised crème fraîche? Yes, but it won’t.
In a few short years, the Essex Market buildings will be torn down, and existing vendors will be relocated to a new, larger, state-​of-​the-​art building across the street, where they won’t have to deal with temperature fluctuations and awkward stall layouts.
This squat little building is a significant chunk of LES history, and it’s still being written.