Six Vendors to Know at Clintonville Farmers Market
Plus, in food news, Downtown loses a long-running steakhouse, and Racha Night Market returns.
This is part of a series of articles about Central Ohio farmers markets. We have previously written about the German Village and Grandview Heights farmers markets.
Six Vendors to Know at Clintonville Farmers Market
By Bethia Woolf
On a Saturday morning on High Street, the Clintonville Farmers Market hums with a particular kind of energy—tote bags swinging, neighbors stopping mid-sidewalk to catch up, cooking aromas wafting through the air. It is a farmers market, yes, but also something more: a weekly community ritual that has anchored this Columbus neighborhood for decades. I have been dropping in since I moved to Ohio 20 years ago, and when I sat down to write about it again (my last piece was back in 2010), I found a market that has evolved in some ways and stayed stubbornly, beautifully the same in others.
The essential character of the Clintonville market remains what it has always been since its foundation: a strictly producer-only market that is very much a beloved neighborhood institution. The focus is food, and there are serious shoppers loading their totes and wagons for the week. But talk to the people running and attending the market and a fuller picture emerges.
Liv Morris, the new market manager, describes it as a weekly community party—eating, dancing, a chance to meet neighbors. Common Greens board member Todd Mills calls it a cultural hub where “all the unique qualities that make the neighborhood great are on display.” Local business owner Olivera Bratich, whom I ran into shopping there, put it simply: “The market is part of the rhythm of life in Clintonville. You see the same faces every week.” And with its location right on High Street, a trip to the market folds easily into the rest of a Saturday’s errands.
The market was originally founded in 2003 with just six farmers but has grown over the years to average 60 vendors each week from the end of April through Thanksgiving, with over 100 vendors across the span of the season. Morris explains that market management looks for a balance of vendors, heavy on produce but careful not to oversaturate the market with the same items. They seek out farmers who grow different produce and try to spread produce vendors geographically throughout the market.
Since 2021, the Clintonville Farmers Market has been part of Common Greens, a nonprofit organization that also coordinates farmers markets in Bexley, Upper Arlington and the OhioHealth Market; as of this year it will also operate a Downtown Market on Thursdays at Columbus Commons. Mills says that the mission of Common Greens is to build great markets and foster a thriving local food economy.
While some vendors also sell at Worthington, Grandview Heights or other farmers markets, a handful can only be found at the Clintonville Farmers Market. They include Local Millers, Good Food Bakery, Gooseberry Farm, Knosh, Sonflour Bakery, B Farmer Honey and Fulton Creek Organics.
Here’s a bit more about six of them:
Gooseberry Farm
An urban farm located off Cooke Road, Gooseberry Farm is in its third season at the Clintonville Farmers Market, but this is its first season attending weekly. Noah Bergen, who has been farming for 12 years, grew up in Columbus shopping at the market and moved back four years ago. He says it made sense to set up at the market he loves, close to the farm. Bergen grows lettuce, baby greens, root vegetables, kohlrabi, herbs and ground cherries. Bergen is now farming full time and has been selling out each week.
Good Food Bakery
Baker Renee Morgan has been at the Clintonville Market for at least 16 years. Her focus is gluten-free baked goods, and she has a devoted following of regular customers. Her best-selling items at the market are the cinnamon rolls and the lemon blueberry bread. Outside of the market, she makes gluten-free buns for Dirty Frank’s Hot Dog Palace and gluten-free pizza crusts for Fibonacci’s Pizzeria.