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JOURNAL
LOCAL INTELLIGENCE
San Luis Obispo's Thursday evening market closes several blocks of Higuera Street to traffic, and it functions as dinner more than as grocery shopping. The produce stands are there and they are good, but most of the crowd is eating.
The thing to order is Santa Maria style barbecue. That means tri-tip cooked over red oak on open grills set up in the street, sliced thin and put on a roll. It is the local specialty of this stretch of California, it is not the same as barbecue anywhere else, and the smoke is how you find the grills before you see them. Tamale carts, kettle corn and taco stands fill in around them.
The market is also the town's weekly gathering. Live music at the intersections, high schoolers in packs, families with strollers, farmers who drove in from the valleys. It is the one reliable time to see the place being a town rather than a stop on the way somewhere.
Arrive before the market starts rather than after. The downtown garages fill fast and the streets around the closure are hunted over hard, so park a few blocks out and walk in. You will save more time than you spend.
Eat while the grills are hot and the lines are short, then browse. Doing it the other way around means carrying a bag of produce through a crowd while you wait for a sandwich. Bring cash, because some stands take cards and some do not, and you do not want to be sorting that out at the front of a line.
The market runs year-round, and winter is the underrated version: cold, thinner crowds, and the same barbecue. Weather occasionally cancels it, so it is worth a check on the day if you are driving in from the coast. Ask your local manager on the way out the door.