A New Day…
We are making history…I don’t think any farmers market in Austin has been open from 8 am to noon on Saturdays other than the time when we tried it the first year, in 2003, for the Austin Farmers’ Market. Back then, we thought it was a good idea (in May, folks, when summer started typically in Central Texas) to have an earlier morning market. Many shoppers stayed in bed until a little later.
That was before the Food, Inc. film, Fast Food Nation, Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma (and subsequent In Defense of Food), Super Size Me, and many other mass media appeals to human sensibility to eat more of what nature gives you–and not fall for the tantilizing food industry’s manufacturered “tastes” largely constructed of atoms of fat, salt and sugar with a binding of genetically modified corn holding it all together.
Just as the Austin Farmers’ Market has grown up, you as consumers have too. There are the stalwarts who have always known (and who have for seven years come to the market when the first clang of the market’s opening bell rings). And now there are more. You are the newly awakened body of tasters who truly taste, who truly enjoy the art of eating from local sources. You understand the intricacies of what makes a sustainable food system, including your part in it.
We appreciate that–and we want to make it easier for you to participate in a year-round routine of shopping from the best sources, the farmers themselves. Thus the change of our Saturday hours to 8 am to noon, through October 24th. (We change back to 9 am – 1 pm October 31st, with the daylight savings time change, and will flip back to 8 am to noon in March, when it changes again).
We have experienced your commitment in the continued rise of attendance at the market over the years and now we think the time is right to be able to set a schedule for the Saturday market that fluctuates by the seasons. We did not think this was possible in the past, to have such an avid following that would take notice of changed hours mid-stream. But now we do. It is a new day….