Eastern Market

Before dawn on a Saturday morning in Detroit, the chefs arrive. They come from the best restaurants in the city, before their kitchens open, before most people are awake. They walk the sheds of Eastern Market with their own carts, picking through the freshest produce from farms across Michigan, Ohio, and Ontario. By the time the general public arrives at 7am, the professionals have already been there for hours. That's how good Eastern Market is.

Detroit's public market dates to 1841, when farmers first gathered at Cadillac Square in the downtown core to sell hay, wood, and produce. In 1891, the operation moved northeast to its current location and took the name Eastern Market. The five great sheds you walk through today — their Victorian ironwork and brick still intact, their scale still staggering — were built between 1891 and 1929. In 43 acres, it is the largest historic public market district in the United States.

On a typical Saturday, 40,000 people pass through. Vendors sell freshly-picked Michigan apples and hot fried donuts in fall, strawberries and cut flowers in summer. There are spice merchants whose inventory spans dozens of countries. Butchers who have worked the same stall for decades. Polish and Italian delis operating out of stalls their grandparents built. Flower Day in May — Eastern Market's unofficial holiday — draws 80,000 people to one of the largest flower markets in the world.

Eastern Market has always reflected Detroit — its diversity, its resilience, its stubbornness in the face of decline. Today it anchors a district of more than 150 food businesses that make it not just a Saturday destination but a working food economy operating six days a week.

Saturday is the day to go. Get there before 9am. Eat something from a stall you've never tried before. Talk to the farmers — many of them drive two hours to be there. You'll understand immediately why 40,000 people do the same thing every single week.