By early afternoon on a Wednesday, three parking lots along Riverside Avenue start filling with tents instead of cars. Not at nine, when most farmers markets set up while the dew is still on the tomatoes. At one o'clock, an hour when the produce has already sat in a truck since sunrise. The market runs until five, then the tents come down and the lots go back to being what they were that morning: parking for a Catholic parish.
The market still carries the name Old Greenwich, even though nothing about its current address is in Old Greenwich. It sets up on the grounds of St. Catherine of Siena and St. Agnes, a church on Riverside Avenue, using the parking lots at 11, 13, and 17 Riverside Ave. The name is a holdover from sixteen years spent a mile away, and the schedule is a compromise with a building that has other obligations on a Wednesday.
A market that outgrew its old building, not its idea
For most of its existence, this market ran on Wednesdays at Living Hope Community Church on West End Avenue in Old Greenwich. That ended when the church began planning changes to its own facilities and grounds, including work that affected the parking lot the market had used for years. Rather than fold, the market's organizers went looking for a new host, and the search landed one town line over, on Riverside Avenue.
Dana Lee, one of the market's original founders, filed the application that moved it. Her reasoning, laid out in filings with the Greenwich Planning and Zoning Commission, came down to space: St. Catherine's had the lot size, and the church wasn't planning to run its usual carnival that year, which freed up the grounds on the day that mattered.
The Planning and Zoning Commission approved the relocation, first for a limited run of non-consecutive days between June 17 and September 16, then extended through November 11, 2026, with the requirement that the market reapply for the permit annually. The market opened at its new address on July 1 and has been running every Wednesday since.
Why the market waits until 1 p.m.
A farmers market that opens after lunch is unusual, and the reason has nothing to do with vendors or produce logistics. St. Catherine's holds funerals on Wednesday mornings, and the church's own schedule can start as early as 11 a.m. The 1 to 5 p.m. window was built specifically to avoid a conflict between grieving families arriving for a service and a farmers market setting up tents in the same lot. Vendors are permitted to begin setup no more than an hour ahead of opening, and the whole operation has to clear out within thirty minutes of closing.
It is the kind of scheduling detail that never shows up on a market's website or its Instagram, but it explains something a Riverside resident might otherwise find odd about a Wednesday afternoon on this stretch of the avenue.
More parking than the market has ever had
Parking is where the new address stands out. There are roughly 70 parking spots across the church's lots that aren't already claimed by other regular users of the property, including the J House, TAG buses, Children's Day School, and the Greenwich Japanese School. Add another 18 spots reserved for the church itself and 12 designated visitor spots, and the market now has close to double the parking it had at its old address.
The commission's review also noted there are no scheduled masses or events at the church between noon and 5 p.m. on market days, so the additional foot traffic isn't competing with anyone else's plans for the lot that afternoon.
What's actually at the market
The Old Greenwich Farmers Market has never run on the same model as the Greenwich Farmers Market in the Horseneck Lot downtown. The Horseneck market is producers-only, meaning everything sold there was grown or made by the vendor standing behind the table. The Riverside version has always been looser, built around a mix that includes:
- Connecticut farms selling seasonal produce
- Local food businesses and prepared-food vendors
- Occasional craft vendors, jewelry makers, or nonprofit tables when space allows
A typical week runs 12 to 15 vendors. Prepared-food vendors face a real cost to participate, since Connecticut requires a temporary food service permit that carries a substantial fee, and some businesses interested in joining, including Sono Baking and Carrot Top Kitchen, were waiting on the market's zoning approval before committing to that expense.
Attendance at the old location ran between 200 and 400 people over the course of a market day, children included. There's no reason to expect that number to shrink now that the market has more room to work with.
What's already around it
Riverside Avenue and the surrounding shopping center weren't waiting on a farmers market to give people a reason to be there on a Wednesday afternoon. Aux Délices, Green & Tonic, and Pomodoro Pizzeria have anchored the Riverside Shopping Center as everyday stops for coffee, casual food, and quick errands well before the market existed. Balducci's, just off the Post Road, has long served as the neighborhood's go-to for prepared meals and specialty groceries.
The newest addition to the strip is Barnoodle, an Asian-American noodle bar that opened this year at 1247 East Putnam Avenue, a short walk from the church lots. For anyone picking up produce at the market and looking for dinner afterward, it's one more option that wasn't part of this corridor a year ago.
A season with an end date
Farmers markets are seasonal by nature, and this one is no exception. The current approval runs the market through November 11, 2026, after which the tents come down for the winter. Organizers plan to apply annually to keep operating at St. Catherine's, with the expectation that future seasons will run from early June through the end of October. Whether the market keeps its Old Greenwich name once it's spent a full year, or several, on Riverside Avenue is its own small question. For now, the tents, the schedule, and the parking math all belong to Riverside, even if the sign out front still says otherwise.
If you're curious what else is shifting on Riverside Avenue this season, from new storefronts to the small zoning decisions that shape a block, the New England Land Team tracks these changes as they happen. Reach out anytime you want the detail behind what you're seeing on your own street.
