Our HOTT Crew decided to visit the Boston Public Market on opening day. It's located on Hanover street by Haymarket Station. We were especially delighted that we'd have the chance to try out Union Square Donuts' new Boston Public Market location. Here are our thoughts about the experience there, whom we think will enjoy it, and what we thought were the high points, mid-points, and low points of Boston's new food market.
We were impressed, after much navigating around, with the selection of locally sourced grass fed beef and other quality meats. The pricing was comparable to similar meats at the Whole Foods down the street. Our HOTT Crew likes grass fed beef and highly recommends it.
The thing we consistently noticed about the Boston Public Market was that it's a chick destination. Apparently, if you're a woman within 6 months (plus or minus) of being 30 years old the Boston Public Market is the place to be! Wall to wall women. Aged 30. Salivating over ice cream or beeswax candles. Outside the women were agog and constantly proclaiming the market to be "awesome!". Did we mention how many women were at the Boston Public Market? A LOT!
GB is fond of maple syrup and appreciated the gallon sized jugs (he goes through 3+ gallons a year of maple syrup).
A fair number of locally crafted beers, bottled and in growlers, were available. As were wines and spirits from New England. Beers seemed to be the main focus, although we didn't seem to find any that aren't already at our corner liquor stores in Cambridge. We did notice that Cape Ann Brewery beers, which aren't available in our neighborhood, are also not available at Boston Public Market.
Overall, we think Boston Public Market is ideal for 30 year old women. We're not really sure gay men in the South End or Cambridge will find it worth their while to venture over to Haymarket to shop here.
The product we liked best was the wide selection of locally raised organic grass feed meat and poultry. That's a big plus
We liked the vegetable and fruit selections, but noticed that the vendors were not really up to speed about their own products. For example, as we grew up in Georgia and South Carolina we're very familiar with the many different varieties of peaches. And we're accustomed to growers being able to identify the variety of peach they offer on sale (i.e, Springcrest, Fairhaven, Georgia Belle, Rubyprince, etc). This is the first time we've had a peach grower tell us the variety of peach he's selling is "yellow". Our HOTT Crew thinks there's room for improvement in the produce department!
Our most disappointing experience was with Union Square Donuts. They began to run out of donuts after being open only 2 hours! Although this seems to be the norm at their quaint and quirky Somerville store front, our expectation is that their storefront in Boston Public Market would be kept in stock. We're not sure why they expected a grand opening day to be slow. We think they should start making donuts.
In general our HOTT Crew thinks you may find it interesting to stop by the Boston Public Market and experience it for yourself. We'd be interested to hear if you think it's better suited for tourists or for locals, as we're not quite sure for whom it's designed.
