The Coastal Alabama Farmers and Fishermens Market opens at 9 a.m., and by 9:30, the aisles are packed. It’s easy to see why: This is not your run-of-the-mill farmers’ market.

First, there’s the facility built by the city of Foley. High-roofed and open, it provides shade and allows any breeze to blow through, making it a relatively pleasant place to be on a hot summer morning. There are built-in restrooms and the adjacent lawns allow for a small sprawl of outside vendors. There’s abundant paved parking, shared with nearby volleyball and pickleball courts, and a grassy field for overflow.

An even bigger impression is made by the wares on offer. Local farmers present a glorious array of locally grown produce, from blueberries and watermelons to potatoes, peppers, carrots and greens. These are not the big-but-bland veggies favored in American supermarkets: They’ve got character, which promises flavor.

Others sell beef, eggs, jellies, honey, juices. The smell of fresh-baked rosemary parmesan sourdough loaves from Southern Preserved is enough to drive passersby mad, and they’re not the only purveyors of baked goods on hand. Shrimp on the Go! Seafood, an award-winning Baldwin County vendor, makes sure the market lives up to the “Fishermens” part of its name, with shrimp, snapper, salmon, grouper and other selections. There are a few arts & crafts vendors, too, with an emphasis on handmade work.

Small wonder it’s an award-winning venue. The market recently ranked as first runner-up nationally among farmers’ markets in Newsweek’s Readers’ Choice Awards, and it also has been ranked in the Top 10 in USA Today’s 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards.

The vibe is good. Maybe that’s because when you’ve got good products, a good facility and good traffic, it’s hard for the vibe to be bad. But maybe there’s something more to it.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that the CAFFM is managed on behalf of Foley by a third-generation Baldwin County farmer with a sense of mission. That’s Alescia Forland, whose grandparents emigrated from Norway in the early 1900s and founded a 100-acre farm in the Silverhill area. Forland Farms can now boast its fourth and fifth generations, and Alescia Forland has had experience running the Loxley Farm Market since 1995.

She’s not here to sell widgets.

“We try really hard to have unique vendors,” Forland says, explaining that there’s a waiting list for some categories of vendors but never for farmers.

“We want farmers because that’s the whole point of the farmers’ market,” she says. “We’ve been in the business of family farming for a while now, and you know, it’s difficult. Farming is getting more and more difficult each year. And Baldwin County unfortunately, is going from agriculture to more of row cropping houses, which is sad for me, growing up in the area, seeing all the generational farms going by the wayside. So the farmers’ market is a good way to help keep the smaller farms in business and connect them with the community.”

The COVID-19 pandemic was a lesson in how important local resources can become when supply chains falter, she says. But those local resources have to be nurtured.

“My main goal is, I’m always trying to push young people to farm,” Forland says. “And they have to do small farms, so they need a place like the farmer’s market, because they can’t go out and buy land and start farming. It’s impossible. There’s no way they can go purchase 20, 30, 40 acres of land and farm. They will never pay it off [through] farming at the rate our property values in Baldwin County have increased. But they can, on an acre, two acres, a half-acre, do some sustainable farming.”

Serving as an outlet for small farms’ production isn’t the only role a farmers’ market can play, Forland says. It can be a small business incubator. On this Saturday, one of the vendors, Forget-Me-Knot Bakery,, has a sign up saying that it’s “coming soon” to a brick-and-mortar location in Robertsdale. It won’t be the first business that has made that jump, and Forland says she has seen other producers, such as Tony’s Tejas Salsa, grow to the point they can place their products in supermarkets.

“It’s been a good stepping stone,” she says. “It’s not just for Foley, it’s for the whole county.”

For some entrepreneurs, it lets them make the only step they needed. One of the more unusual booths on this Saturday is Maria’s Gourmet Delights, where Maria Mendez and her husband, Jesus, are selling her empanadas and some amazingly good Cuban sandwiches.

Mendez worked as the director of Latin American sales and trade development for the Alabama State Port Authority before retiring in 2020. “Not knowing what I was going to do, I sat down and looked at my strengths and weaknesses, and everything revolved around cooking, Cuba and traveling,” she says.

She had the idea to start serving empanadas. She had a major ace in the hole: Restaurateur Bob Baumhauer is a friend, she says, and he was willing to help her as she worked through the permitting process and the learning curve of commercial food preparation. Business boomed.

“I needed to do something that would satisfy me,” she says. “And when you’ve put in a life that has been satisfying professionally, how do you fit that into your retirement? So I said, okay, I like to travel, I like to cook, I like to share my culture. So basically, I work 3 months and travel a whole month.

“What the market gives me is the financial freedom not to touch my retirement savings,” she says. “And at the same time, have fun and not grow old. I’m 73 right now, but when you get to be my age, everything starts hurting, so if you’re active and moving, nothing hurts.”

She sees other vendors like herself, she says: Retirees who want something that will keep them busy and bring in a little money, without being so big that it takes all their time and energy.

It adds up to a sense of community, Mendez says. “All the vendors are united and we all help one another,” she says.

“We live in an age where prayer is not cool, but we get together at 8:30 every morning,” she says. “And we pray, we pray for the people that come in, those that are in need, to be able to identify them, someone that might be hurting or in pain. So the people that make the market, they have an energy about them.”

“If you’re looking for a unique experience, a unique present that you’re buying someone, you’ll find everything from artwork to jewelry, handmade,” says Mendez. “And not only that, for food, if you’re looking for organic foods, quality foods that are pesticide-free, grown in Alabama, it is the best place to find all that. It’s a gourmet’s paradise, I guess, because you find the freshest produce, ingredients, spices for that particular time frame, whether it’s fall, spring, summer, winter.”

“Our main goal is to feed the community,” says Forland. “We want to have a friendly family atmosphere. We want everybody to feel connected to each other. And we just want to promote that because when you’re supporting local vendors, that money stays in your community, you’re keeping small business alive, it just is a good overall process for the whole community.

“I know everybody has to shop big box chains sometimes,” she says. “But when you can, it’s best to support the local community. Because that’s where your home is, right?”

The Coastal Alabama Farmers and Fishermens Market is at 781 Farmers Market Lane in Foley. It is open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Saturday, year-round. For information visit www.coastalalabamamarket.com and for updates see www.facebook.com/CoastalAlabamaMarket.