Lone Star Farmers Market
A Sunday morning market at Springdale General, 10am to 2pm, run on Richie Romero's rule that his stalls come from inside fifty miles.3
Why go
Richie Romero runs it and his sourcing rule is geographic: vendors are typically from within fifty miles.1 What that rule bought at the old Bee Cave site is the best evidence of what he books. Sarah Asch found Hi-Fi Mycology there in February 2021, an Austin mushroom farm growing eleven gourmet varieties, with co-owner Sean Henry promising a heavy chestnut crop in spring; Buddha's Brew pouring six kombucha flavors at a time, three fixed and three rotating; and Johnson's Backyard Garden bringing kale, chard and root crops through the winter and selling vegetable transplants bred to survive a Central Texas summer.1 Austin Monthly added SugarFix Cookies, Lady Fever Hot Sauce and ATX Homemade Jerky & Artisan that July.2 Every one of those names is five years old and every one of them was trading at an address this market has since left, so read the list as the caliber Romero books and not as who will be standing there on Sunday.
Order this / avoid
- Go and buy what is cut that morning. The operator's site lists three categories, Food, Local Artisans and Fun, and names no stall at all, so nothing here or anywhere else tells you who is trading at Springdale Road this week.3
- Avoid: driving out for a particular producer. Romero told the Statesman that vendors drop out and come back, and that was five years and one move ago.1
What locals & experts say
- Sarah Asch in the Austin American-Statesman, on scale: the market was pushing forty vendors in early 2021, about ten more than before the pandemic, after an influx that followed a wave of departures the previous March.1
- Kimberly Lanski of Buddha's Brew on why she keeps the stall, verbatim:
There's no other markets out there. That area is growing out there so much.
1 - Sarah Davis in Austin Monthly, verbatim:
You can find this market at the Hill Country Galleria (on the Dicks' Sporting Goods side) every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with goods from vendors such as SugarFix Cookies, Lady Fever Hot Sauce, and ATX Homemade Jerky & Artisan.
2 - Both of those sources describe the Bee Cave site and the operator now lists two others. Read the vendor names as who this market attracts rather than as who will be there on Sunday.
Good to know
- Where and when, from the operator. Two markets run under this name. Springdale General, 1023 Springdale Road, every Sunday 10am to 2pm. Steiner Ranch, 2900 North Quinlan Park Road, on the first and third Thursday of the month, 5pm to 8pm.3
- The market has moved, so ignore the old Bee Cave listings. The Austin American-Statesman in February 2021 and Austin Monthly that July both place Lone Star at the Hill Country Galleria, 12700 Hill Country Blvd.1 The operator's current site lists Springdale General and Steiner Ranch and no Bee Cave market at all. Go by the operator's own site.3
- The separately named Bee Cave Farmers Market still trades every Sunday in the central plaza of the same Galleria, with more than forty vendors selling meat, vegetables, cheese, milk and baked goods.4 Whether it is the same operation under a new name is not established.
- The named vendors are all 2021 and all from the Bee Cave era. No single trader at Springdale General or Steiner Ranch has been named, and the operator's own site lists product categories rather than stalls.3
- Hygiene: no inspection score exists, and none can. Austin Public Health's register covers fixed food establishments; an open-air market of independent stallholders is not one, and its traders fall under a separate mobile-vendor program whose scores are not published as open data.5
Verdict
listed — Richie Romero's rule is that vendors come from inside fifty miles, and the stalls that rule bought at the old site earn a drive: Hi-Fi Mycology growing eleven gourmet mushroom varieties, Buddha's Brew pouring six kombuchas at a time, Johnson's Backyard Garden bringing kale, chard and root crops in winter and selling vegetable transplants bred for Central Texas heat, plus SugarFix Cookies, Lady Fever Hot Sauce and ATX Homemade Jerky. The catch is the date and the address: every one of those names comes from 2021 pieces about Bee Cave, and the operator now lists Springdale General on Sundays and Steiner Ranch twice a month instead. What is publishable about the market as it trades today is a Sunday from 10am to 2pm at 1023 Springdale Road, at the same address as Zhi Tea and Uroko, and a first-and-third-Thursday evening market at Steiner Ranch from 5pm to 8pm. Nobody names a grower, a baker or a rancher at either one, and for a farmers market that is the thing that would make it worth planning around. The saved map pin points at Bee Cave, twenty miles west, where a differently named market trades at the Hill Country Galleria; whether that one is still run under this name could not be settled. So it earns a pin and it does not earn a detour, and it moves up the day a critic or a guide names somebody trading on Springdale Road.