All the local farmers' markets have one thing in common: great farmers. (Admittedly, they can be hard to find at the Minneapolis and Nicollet markets, choked among the vendors selling past-its-prime supermarket produce.) But most of the markets' locations feel like the city's leftovers, as they're often stuffed under a dingy freeway overpass or set up on an egg-frying-hot parking lot. Mill City Market is the only local market that hosts its farmers in a setting equal to their important community contributions, on prime riverfront real estate between the Guthrie Theater and the Mill City Museum, next to the picturesque Stone Arch Bridge. A former General Mills Flour Mill train shed shades a majority of the vendors, while musical performances, cooking demonstrations, and pens of live, cuddly chickens overflow onto the adjacent areas. Mill City Market focuses on local and sustainable wares, so there's plenty of fresh-picked produce, plus value-added goods like cheeses, caramels, ready-to-eat tarts, and bison burgers—in case all that shopping whets your appetite.