Small Batch NYC
The city has an enormous number of people making food at small scale, and a genuinely good set of places to buy it.
New York is a hard place to run a small food business — rents are punishing, kitchen space is scarce, and distribution is expensive. It is also, for exactly the same reasons, a city with an unusually dense network of shared infrastructure: farmers' markets that will take a small producer, incubator kitchens, market halls, and weekend markets that function as the trade's shop window.
This guide covers where to buy that food, and — for people on the other side of the table — how the infrastructure for making it actually works.
What is here
- Greenmarkets — the farmers' market network and how to use it
- Food halls — the permanent markets, old and new
- Weekend markets — Smorgasburg, the fleas, and the seasonal ones
- Starting a food business — kitchens, licensing and the realistic version
A note on 'artisanal'
The word has been worn smooth by marketing and now means very little. What is worth looking for is more specific: who made it, where, at what scale, and whether you can ask them about it. A market stall where the person behind it made the thing is a different proposition from a shelf in a shop, and the difference is not a matter of branding.
What this is not
It is not a directory of businesses. Small food businesses open and close constantly — a list here would be misleading within a season. What is here instead is the structure: the markets, the seasons, the institutions and the rules, which change far more slowly.