The Manzanita Farmers Market is a Friday-evening thing, which tells you a lot about how this town works. It runs from 5 to 8pm, mid-June through September, in a lot just off Laneda Avenue, and it's timed for exactly the moment you've arrived for the weekend, unpacked the car, and realized you have nothing for dinner. It's small, it's friendly, there's music, and the dog is welcome. Here's how we do it.
The basics
The market sets up at Underhill Plaza, a short walk from the shops on Laneda and about five minutes on foot from the beach. Fridays only, 5 to 8pm, from roughly the middle of June to the last Friday of September. Dates shift a little year to year, so if you're coming on the first or last weekend of the season, check the market's page or ask us. Parking on Laneda fills up on summer Fridays; if you're staying nearby, walk. If you're driving in from Nehalem or Wheeler, park a few blocks off and enjoy the stroll.
What you'll actually find
This isn't a giant urban market with forty produce stalls. It's a couple dozen vendors, mostly from Tillamook and Clatsop counties, and the mix leans toward things that grow in a cool coastal climate plus the stuff people drive over from the valley.
- Produce: berries in June and July, greens all summer, tomatoes and corn later than you'd expect (August and September), and squash by the end.
- Seafood and meat: local fish and crab when it's in season, grass-fed beef and lamb from nearby ranches, sometimes smoked salmon that will disappear before you get home.
- Cheese and dairy: this is Tillamook County. The cheese is good.
- Bread and pastry: a couple of bakers who sell out by 6:30. Go early for bread.
- Flowers, honey, jam, hot sauce, the usual small-batch joys.
- Prepared food: a few vendors doing tacos, wood-fired pizza, or similar. Good for kids who need to eat now.
There's live music most weeks, a lawn to sit on, and a fairly steady stream of dogs meeting other dogs.
How to time it
Arrive right at 5 if you want bread, berries, or fish. Arrive at 6:30 if you want the music and the people-watching and don't mind fewer choices. The light in Manzanita around 7 on a July evening is the whole reason people move here, so plan to still be outside for it. Walk to the beach after with whatever you didn't eat.
If you're checking in Friday, this is the perfect first stop: unload, leash the dog, walk to the market, buy dinner. If you're leaving Saturday morning, it's a great last-night dinner and a way to bring a bag of good things home.
Turn it into dinner
The market really shines when you've got a full kitchen waiting. Here's a no-recipe plan we've used more than once: a loaf of bread, a hunk of local cheese, whatever fish looks best, a bag of greens, a pint of berries. Back at the house, the fish goes in a hot pan with butter and lemon, the greens get olive oil and salt, the bread gets torn, and the berries are dessert. Twenty minutes, nothing fancy, eaten on the deck with the hot tub warming up behind you. Puffin Lane is about a ten-minute walk from the beach and a short walk to the market, with a kitchen that makes this easy and a cedar hot tub for after.
Other stops on the same walk
Laneda Avenue has a good bookstore, a coffee shop that's open early, a wine shop with a real selection, and a small grocery for the things the market doesn't cover. If the market doesn't have enough produce for your plans, the grocery fills the gaps. Ice cream on Laneda is a reasonable pre-beach or post-market decision, and the walk to the sand is straight down the street.
For the rest of the weekend, our Manzanita things-to-do page covers Neahkahnie Mountain, Oswald West, the Nehalem Bay kayaking and crabbing, and where to get the Tillamook Creamery visit right. If you're a market person generally, the Eugene markets and u-pick farms are a very different scale of the same idea, and worth comparing if you split time between our homes.
Off-season and rainy Fridays
The market is seasonal, and there's no winter version. In October through May, Laneda's grocery and the Nehalem and Wheeler shops fill the role, and the Tillamook Farmers Market on Saturdays runs a bit longer into fall. On a rainy summer Friday, the market usually goes on with fewer vendors and soggier music. Bring a rain shell. Honestly, the fish is just as good wet.
Small town, small market, Friday night, dog at your feet. It's one of those things that isn't a big deal and is somehow one of the best parts of the trip.