Maximize Your West Chester Growers Market Experience with These Market Vendor Tips

Summer is the time for dipping your toes in the sand, biting into a backyard burger and strolling the stands of local farmers’ markets filled with the season’s best offerings. West Chester residents are lucky enough to share a hometown with Southeastern Pennsylvania’s first producer-only farmers market—the West Chester Growers Market (WCGM).

wcgm - maple hill farm

For more than 20 years, WCGM has provided residents with a bounty of fresh and local products. Shoppers can find anything from apples to zinnias with everything in between from the lineup of 30 vendors. During one recent Saturday visit, I spent the day getting to know a few of the market’s farmers, artisans, bakers and growers, and they offered the following tips for making the most of your market visit.  

Take Your Time

Keith Fahnestock of Fahnestock’s Fruit Farm wants market-goers to embrace the “slow” in slow food. He explained, “Come with the attitude of enjoying the experience and not rushing through it. It’s not like going to the grocery store and you’re trying to fly through there.”

Embrace the Community

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The WCGM is more just a place to grab fresh fruit, vegetables, meats, cheeses and dairy products, baked goods, artisanal products, herbs, flowers and plants. As longtime market vendor Andy O’Neill from Big Sky Bread Co. said, The town is extremely inviting. Everyone is happy to be here. It’s become a town event instead of just a place to shop. This is by far our best market that we do.”

The Members Do More Than Sell Their Weekly Wares

wcgm-ellen april soaps

Your positive experience as a market customer is a direct line to the members, who invest in producing a great market. According to Ellen Watson, the owner of Ellen April Handcrafted Soap, “All the vendors contribute their time to the market. We all get a voice in this market. It’s not run by one person. We have a board membership and all get to vote on everything.”

Try New Things

wcgm - north star orchards

As Hannah Frankman, marketing assistant for North Star Orchard, explained, “Be adventurous and try different things. There are things here that are really amazing. Maybe you’ve never heard of them before, but just try them.”

Vendors Love Their Customers

West Chester Growers Market schaeffers flowers

Many vendors said their customers have turned into good friends after serving them every week. The members are also the ones who come up with the countless customer appreciation days and often can be found scooping ice cream or putting together raffles.

Bring the Basics

Catherine Renzi of Yellow Springs Farm reminded people not to leave home without the basics—cash (especially small bills) and a cooler bag.

West Chester Growers Market lizzie's kitchenAsk About Pre-Orders

To make shopping easier, a few vendors, like Lindenhof Farm and Yellow Springs Farm, will take your order before you even arrive at the market.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask

West Chester Growers Market tally ho coffee

Throughout the day, vendors echoed the same advice—vendors love interacting with customers, so ask questions! They would happily gab all day about their growing practices, their business beginnings, favorite recipes and products, random facts about the product and anything else under the sun. “You get a chance to talk to the grower. When you go to the supermarket, you have no idea about your food: how it was sprayed or how it was transferred. Here you get a chance to meet the farmer and know these things,” said Paul Hauser of Maple Hill Farm.

West Chester Growers Market- ridge valley farm

Get to know the friendly faces behind your food every Saturday from 9 a.m.–1 p.m., May through December, and 10 a.m.–noon on the 1st, 3rd and 5th Saturdays from January through April.

Find the West Chester Growers Market at the corner of N. Church and W. Chestnut Streets.

  • Photos: Leslie Hudson