In our April cover story, senior staff writer Ligaya Figueras spoke with 11 visionaries who have altered St. Louis’ culinary scene. They told us their experience in their own words. All month long, we’ll be revealing the parts of the interview with these men and women that you didn’t see, along with their favorite recipes, right here in Extra Sauce. First we brought you more from Joe Edwards, then it was Karen Duffy. And now, more from Game Changer Patrick Horine, co-owner of Local Harvest Grocery and Local Harvest Café and co-founder of Tower Grove Farmers’ Market and Downtown Farmers’ Market.
Our first year [at the market] we had an average of 13 vendors and an average of 500 visitors. Now we range from 40 to 50 vendors and anywhere from 3,500 to 4,000 visitors per day.
The majority spend over an hour at the market. A good number will spend two hours or more. That tells us they are doing more than shopping. We’ve created a space where people can get together and we’ve introduced healthy food into the city.
The challenges moving forward are going to be legislation on the food industry. When combined all together, it could make things difficult for small farmers: packaging food, inspections, things with raw milk going on right now. Hopefully, this will be based on concerns for small farmers and not big lobbyists.
The farmers agreed to come back for a lunch hour farmers’ market and that’s what we’re going to do. Our mission for this downtown market is to showcase Missouri and Illinois produce for downtown workers, residents and visitors to downtown and to enhance downtown overall. It was not targeted primarily to downtown residents because there are probably not enough residents downtown to support a market.
For a recipe of one of Horine’s favorite dishes, click here.
This article appears in April 2011.