Clinton Bailey Farmers Market
1443 Clinton St., Buffalo, NY 14206
Web: Clinton Bailey Farmers Market
Phone: 716.822.2466
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Buffalo Favorites Markets Williamsville

"Of the three markets, Elmwood Avenue's farmers market offered the best combination of scenery and food options, fresh and prepared; it occupies a park-like stretch of land."

For decades, Western New Yorkers have debated the correct balance between supporting local businesses and patronizing national ones. Some people - many, actually - err on the side of buying as much as possible from smaller neighborhood and village shops, while others openly welcome as many larger companies as have wanted to be here. Yet supermarkets are a rare and interesting exception to this phenomenon: shopping at the area's largest national-class chain Wegmans actually supports our neighbors in Rochester, while some of the vendors at local farmers markets are actually are equally distant from Buffalo, only smaller. Whatever your perspectives may be on the local versus national, big versus small, producer versus middleman debates, Western New York's farmers markets are worth seeing; they provide a truly fun weekend alternative to big store shopping, their tables and tents offering a mix of items that can and can't be found at local supermarkets, some enticing, others not so much. This weekend, we visited three different markets just to compare their offerings to favorites we've loved in other cities; here's just a little of what they're about.

Clinton Bailey Farmers Market. Of the three markets, Clinton Bailey is the one where you're most likely to hear both Spanish and English being spoken as you walk around, the one with the most vendors selling produce from the pavement rather than tables, and the one that evokes the grittiest urban surroundings. It's also the one where we happened to make our favorite purchases of the day, though we could have said the same about either of the others if we'd just been shopping a little differently. Located in the shadows of the Niagara Frontier Food Terminal, this Farmers Market offers a tiny Saturday flea market but primarily focuses on produce, as contrasted with, say, Cheektowaga's Super Flea, which on weekends is almost entirely skewed in the other direction.

This market makes the least impressive first impression of the bunch, but as you walk its several aisles, its virtues become obvious. It's not the prices, necessarily - you'll pay roughly as much as you might at a larger market, maybe a little less - but rather, the fact that more of the cash is going directly into the hands of the farmer rather than a separate retailer or middleman. Some of the stands are small, challenging you to look on the ground to see anything at all, let alone anything interesting, but then you'll spot something like boxes of melon-sized onions, and sort of shake your head in disbelief. They really sell those? Here? Wow. Homemade honeys, jams, and plenty of seasonal fruits and vegetables are available here from multiple vendors; on the flip side, pre-prepared foods were weakly represented here by comparison with the other farmers markets we've visited.

Notably, Clinton Bailey had some of the best peppers we found at any of the markets, even including red pepper plants that could be purchased for $4 each. We handed over a $10 and were given $7 back. "Wasn't this $4," we asked the woman at the large, impressive produce stand? "You can have it for $3," she said, thanking us when we returned the extra dollar. That sort of thing just doesn't happen at a supermarket. From May 1st to November 1st, the Clinton Bailey Farmers Market is open seven days a week from at least 7am until 6pm; during the rest of the year, it maintains limited hours solely on Saturday mornings.

Farmers Market at Bidwell Parkway. Of the three markets, Elmwood Avenue's farmers market offered the best combination of scenery and food options, fresh and prepared. It occupies a fully grassy, park-like stretch of tree-lined land with plenty of nearby parking, and vendors line both sides of the park with almost entirely table- and tent-based stands. Though it's only open Saturdays from 8am to 1pm during the mid-May to mid-December stretch of the year, some of the vendors move to an indoor site on Elmwood for the Wintermarket on Elmwood at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church. A sign out front proudly says that all of the offerings are grown and produced locally, and the market's web site notes that "absolutely no reselling is allowed... no middlemen, no compromises."

With such a limitation, one might imagine that the vendors might all be tiny; they're not. We spotted a number of businesses we've seen at local food festivals, including Schulze Vineyard & Winery, Go Veggies, Chow Chocolat, and Niagara Landing Wine Cellars, plus many, many more: Painted Meadow Farm from Franklinville was offering "free range" frozen duck and "farm fresh rabbit" from on-site coolers; bakeries such as Buffalo's Five Points Bakery sold cheese and 100% whole grain breads, and Tom Tower's Farm from Youngstown had spreads of tomatoes and apples that spanned the red, orange, and yellow spectra. Apart from the fact that we couldn't find any cilantro or red peppers at any of the stands - we wound up going elsewhere to pick those items up - the Bidwell Parkway market has more than enough on hand to prepare a complete meal: meat, potatoes, starches, drinks, and desserts.

Besides the two wineries, both of which produce wines that we've actually really liked, one thing that caught our attention was a gourmet sorbet stand offering a Pineapple Thai Basil flavor, amongst many others, along with free samples that we really wished we had tried; it was just too early for dessert. Other stands offered homemade cheeses, honeys, and sausages, some of which could be sampled, others not. We liked the fact that this particular market offered both shopping and snacking options, and though it wouldn't have hurt to have more of the latter, it's so strong in the former that it's worth visiting, regardless.

Farmers Market at the Williamsville Mill. If we wanted to focus solely or substantially on local food history, we would use a few paragraphs here to shed tears over the vacancy of Williamsville's old red Water Mill, which used to produce the best apple cider in the area. Now, the Mill serves as little more than a backdrop for a nice but small farmers market that runs every Saturday morning from late May through the end of October. Occupying much of East Spring Street, this market also attracts local wineries, sellers of produce, and bakeries, though far fewer than the Farmers Market at Bidwell Parkway.

What we liked about this market was that it attracted a number of mid-sized local vendors, including Yancey's Fancy cheeses - there with a nice cow-themed table full of bags and slices priced from $3 to $6 - plus Becker Farms/Vizcarra Vineyards, which offered at least 18 different wines in addition to homemade pies, fudge, and some produce, and Honeymoon Trail Wineries, which came with five different wines that visitors could taste and buy by the bottle. There were also some really interesting unfamiliar names on site, such as Stoneybrook Kitchen - a dairy, egg, and sweetener-free bakery with beautiful-looking palmiers, pizzettes, and multigrain loaves on display, and Sweet Temptations de Jour, which used samples as a way to snare us into buying a bag of delicious sugar waffles. A gentleman in a sombrero hawked homemade tortilla chips, chile and salsa from Hamburg's Coyote Cafe, while several vendors offered attractive displays of flowers and focused collections of produce. The only thing that turned us off was a bakery with sweets that were in the midst of being attacked by bees or yellow jackets when we arrived.

That aside, the Williamsville Mill's vendors were the most like ones we've found at markets in California and both Washingtons, though the environment was also the lowest-key: quiet, with less personality, and fewer options than we might have hoped to find there. Bidwell Parkway's market featured performances from a live band, and Clinton Bailey had one or two large, catchall-style vendors; this one needed a little special something extra to make it more memorable. If the Mill had been running - just a dream, of course, given all the issues it has had over the years - that might have been enough, but in its absence, a few more big vendors would help make this market even more compelling. It's nice as-is, but we'd travel to Elmwood first.

We'd like to hear from you, readers - what's your favorite Western New York farmers market, and why? How often do you go, and what do you normally like to buy there? What could the vendors or organizers do to make them better? Tell us in the comments section below.