The Olympia Farmer's Market was established by a small band of hippies in 1975.
It's rumored that the band of hippies were commies, that they looked like members of Pink Floyd, and that they smoked weed on the steps of the Capitol building. There is a 98% chance of this being true, despite the fact that I just made it up.
Regardless of the politics and patchouli-stench of the hippies, twenty-seven years later, the Olympia Farmer's Market is a large building full of food and bustling people. Boston's Quincy Market is jealous. Seattle's Pike Place Market might be jealous soon. Binghamton's Washington Street Farmer's Market sucks ass and cannot even fathom the glory of the Olympia Farmer's Market.
Where else -- I ASK you! -- can you buy a tomato, a hematite ring, a cup of espresso, a venus flytrap, the biggest head of cabbage in the world, a Caffeine-Free Diet Coke, some curry, a Walla Walla onion, a tie-dyed shirt, an ostrich egg, and a steak made out of a buffalo...?
Nowhere, that's where.
The nice folks at Sound Fresh seafood supplied me with a recipe for clam chowder on a recent visit to the Farmer's Market. They had, alas, sold out of clams for the day ("You're takin' a big risk, comin' down this late..."), but gave me the recipe anyway. Johnson Farms supplied me with about eighty samples of jellies and jams, and explanations of the various ingredients, some of which included: "Loch Ness Berries" and "Tay Berries."
(Loch Ness Berries are no relation to the monster. They mostly just taste like blackberries...)
(The dude at Johnson Farms bid people farewell by saying, "PeaceLove," instead of "Goodbye" or "See ya." Some of that oldtime Olympia spirit obviously remains... I bet the Johnson Farms dude regularly smokes weed on the steps of the Capitol Building...)
The San Francisco Street Bakery offers a wide selection of breads, pies, quiche, bagels, and pastries. Pretty much everything is good there, but if you're anywhere in the neighborhood of the San Francisco Street Bakery's booth at the Farmer's Market, BE SURE (this is mandatory) to buy a couple of those little white cookies with the chocolate frosting on top. If you survive the experience, you will have reached Enlightenment. If you don't survive it, oh well, I get the rest of your cookie.
Johnson's Smokehouse (not to be confused with Johnson Farms -- those are the jam people) offers a variety of meats and jerkies. Try the salmon jerky. Sounds gross, and kinda looks gross, but salmon jerky is damn near as good as those little cookies from the S.F. Street Bakery.
The Farmer's Market is a perfect place to purchase off-beat gifts. What else would you expect from Olympia BUT off-beat? At the market, you can choose birthday gifts from the following: handmade soap, dried flower arrangements, venus flytraps (I know I already mentioned that, but flytraps are cute and deserve more mention), emu-oil lip balm (yes, I'm serious), wooden puzzles absolutely nobody can solve, jars of honey, jars of jam (of absolutely ANY flavor), spices, seeds, and crystals. You'll find cards, stuffed animal-type-things, shirts, lotions, all manners of cedar things, bags, necklaces, rocks (yeah, buying a rock is kind of a ripoff, but you have to humor people who actually have the balls to so blatantly prey on your sucker instincts...), prints... Oh, you name it, and if you can't find it at the Olympia Farmer's Market, you have no business buying it for somebody's birthday.
When you're sufficiently enraptured by the pleasant conversations, the unlimited samples of things, and the dude who sells the venus flytraps, you might want to sit down and have something to eat... Of course you will. So, there are a ton of options. The Farmer's Market actually has a whole strip of booths and shops that sell ready-to-eat food, including fish burgers (which may or may not be anything like fish tacos -- they both frighten me a little...), curry, bagel sandwiches, sweets, knackwurst, soups, and almost anything else you can think up. Dingey's has the best clam chowder. They also humor you when you order strange things, like raisin bagels with cream cheese and ham. Dingey's is also the least intimidating shop on the Farmer's Market food strip. And they're fairly close to the live-entertainment area.
If you prefer to sit down indoors and read the newspaper, your best bet is down the street a block at a coffeehouse whose identity is obscure. The coffeehouse appears to call itself the Batdorf and Bronson Tasting Room, but everybody else calls it Dancing Goats. This is because the B&B Tasting Room has a large statue outside of two goats engaged in some pretty obvious rhumba moves. About a bazillion years ago, there was a coffeehouse called Dancing Goats someplace else in Olympia, but it closed, and I guess it gave all its "goat" stuff to the B&B Tasting Room. I highly recommend an americano there. Bring over a couple of those chocolate-topped cookies from the San Francisco Street Bakery.
Before you leave the Olympia Farmer's Market, make sure you take a moment to stick your head (or preferably, your head and torso, but I realize not everybody's that flexible) into one of the huge wooden crates of apples. Inhale. Once, I got into a long, drawn-out debate with one of EchoSiberia's finest webmasters about the quality of Washington State apples versus the quality of New York State apples. While New York appears to offer a bigger variety of apples, one good whiff of any of the apple-crates at the Olympia Farmer's Market will convince you never, ever to leave.
The Olympia Farmer's Market is open 10 AM until 3 PM, Thursday through Sunday, until the end of October. In November and December, the Farmer's Market will be open only on weekends. It is located at Market Street and Washington Street, just a few blocks north of 4th Ave. The B&B Tasting Room (or Dancing Goats, whatever you'd like to call it) is located on Market Street, and is open Wednesday through Sunday from 9 AM until 4 PM. For more information:
The Olympia Farmer's Market (including links to vendors' sites)
Batdorf & Bronson
Dingey's (review)