Milwaukee Public Market-Coming Soon...Why not Chicago?

This looks pretty nice and I look forward to trying in about a month, but why doesn't/can't this exist in Chicago? Maybe off Randolph, Fulton, Old Meigs field? Anywhere? If done right and properly accessable, how could this not be successful?

http://milwaukeepublicmarket.org/

I really don't know. It would be really wonderful. I'm even more convinced of that after visiting the Jean Talon market in Montreal this weekend, which was spectacular.

Tons of extremely cheap mostly quebec-grown produce, some nice butchers, vendors selling grilled sausages, fresh-fried calamari, carrot/onion fritters, incredibly fantastic gelati and sorbetti. I have a lot of pictures, and I'll update the montreal thread with them later today. Needless to say, I want one here.

Granville Island in Vancouver comes to mind. Excellent selection of produce, fish, meat, cheeses, bakery, prepared foods and on. Beautiful scenery, free entertainment and on and on. Even Nashville, TN has a permanent public market spread across several large sheds and buildings downtown. Not to take away from any of Chicago's food options, it just seems surprising no one in the the city's business development office has ever got a plan off the ground for something like this. Maybe they tried and a proper location wasn't feasible? Who knows?

We just got back from Toronto which has a wonderful public market as well - St. Lawrence Market near downtown. It's very similar to Granville Island - wonderful produce and a fabulous selection of meats and prepared foods, and I found the prices to be much more reasonable. It is such a neat experience - perhaps Hizzoner will build one at Northerly Island.

Even Cleveland has its old, hulking West Side Market - very fun to go through. I thought Chicago was talking about a market here several years ago, but it's obviously not a priority.

Well, with the upcoming relocation of Maxwell Street, maybe now is the time to agitate that such a marketplace be included in the plan.

Several points:

1) St. Lawrence Market in Toronto is great ... I would stop there on the way to my family's cottage in the Rideau Lakes region. However, a more interesting market is the Kensington Market which is west of Spadina St. south of Bloor. BOTH are well worth a visit.

2) The West Side Market - the inside portion with the butchers, cheese, etc., is a great market. The produce which is sold outside is a very hit and miss proposition. Some stands sell quality; most sell surplus. You can do *WELL* there if you know who does a nice job and who sells garbage. (Disclaimer: I have a lot of friends who own stalls and stands at the WSM. I shopped there every week I was in Cleveland.)

For the record, if you relocated the WSM to Chicago, I would not buy my produce there as there are some great produce places like Eurofresh , joseph's Marketplace, and the like that offer better quality.

3) The BEST overall market is the Eastern Market in Detroit. They have surplus produce, dozens of real farmers from Michigan and Southern Ontario, and a lot of wholesale meat markets that sell to the public. There are vendors that would keep me stocked up with fresh spices year round there. They also have sell a lot of flowers, Christmas trees, etc.

Since you are dealing with farmers and surplus dealers, they are motivated not to take product back home. If you arrive at 3:00 pm, you can get some phenomenal deals - cases of zucchini, asparagus for $2-3 ... if you can or freeze, you can get some great steals on produce ... and the quality is generally pretty good.

If you can find the new location of the Windsor, ON public market (it was relocated by the casino), that is well worth a visit.