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| - I've lived in Charlotte 10 years, and I've never once been to this farmers market, which is ridiculous, as it's only 10 minutes from me and it's the busiest and most well-known. I guess I'm lucky enough to be near Atherton market, Kings Drive, and Mecklenburg County markets within a 1-mile radius of my house.
Still, this is the biggest, so I checked it out on a Saturday morning. Even at 8:30, the parking lot was packed. There were 4 big open barns, one with crafts, one with plants/herbs, and two with veggies/fruits/meats. There were some negative reviews on google maps that the food was overpriced and wasn't local, but while I found that to be true with a couple of big stalls (with a ton of produce--a local farm probably won't produce all that!) who didn't advertise where they came from, there were plenty of stalls with local farms selling small bits of meats/cheese/dairy/produce. So it's not like you can't pick and choose.
I got a croissant from the Nova's Bakery stall and wandered around. I was there about an hour, and for about $15, got ground beef ($5), some lettuce and napa cabbage ($4), tomatoes, zucchini, squash and absolutely gorgeous strawberries. I don't think famers markets are super cheap anywhere, but the produce looked terrific (and I ate the tomato and napa cabbage for breakfast and it was delicious) and I thought was reasonably priced. You can get all your meat locally (and yes, it's more expensive...but thus is life) without having to buy it from grocery stores if you're that motivated. Happy to support my local farmers when I can, and often they have more unusual crops than the grocery story might! Will definitely be back. I'm lucky to now know i'm so close to 4 farmers markets!
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