Dear Island Earth Farmers Market:

You are, in a word, LAME!!!

I thought that a farmers' market was supposed to have, you know, FARMERS!!! I counted a grand total of five, the number of fingers I have on one hand, actual farmers when I visited today. You have more stands selling the kind of food that I'd expect to find at a street fair than you have farmers!!! And, there's an overly large display devoted to peddling the kind of hippy-dippy arts and crafts that I despise.

I'll grant you that some of the baked goods looked, well, good. But I didn't think I was going to a bakers' market, I thought I was going to a FARMERS' market.

I'll also grant you that I bought some mighty nice-looking strawberries that I plan to sweat when I get home. But I was really looking for way more produce variety than was on display today. That's the mental picture I get when I think farmers' market — lots of farmers selling a wide variety of freshly picked produce. You failed to deliver.

Perhaps I'm being overly critical, this being your first day and all. But, your location in the cursed Metreon notwithstanding, I had some really high hopes for you when I read about your pending opening. You have two huge advantages over the Ferry Building farmers market — better hours (as of this writing, 10-8 M to F, 10-7 Sunday) and tons of reasonably-priced parking across the street at the Fifth and Mission garage (is it cool or scary that a parking garage has its own web site?). Dashed, my hopes were, dashed against the rocks of bitter reality.

Please get your act together fast. At least triple the number of farmers represented and increase the variety (e.g., a farmer specializing in fresh herbs would be really nice). I want you to succeed, I really do. But, if you don't improve quickly, I fear you'll be written off as yet another of the long line of lame business that failed in the black hole called Metreon.

Sincerely,
Grumpy