The St. Paul Farmers’ Market in Lowertown is opening a year-round indoor market space in the former Black Dog Cafe spot at 308 Prince St., kitty-corner from the existing outdoor market.
The indoor market opens Nov. 1 and will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays for now. Alongside other growers who will set up stalls on the perimeter of the space, Galvan Foods, the local tortilla and taco company that’s a mainstay of the outdoor market, is set to head inside to take over the large central counter-service kitchen.
There are no changes coming to the outdoor market, said Jim Golden, executive director of the St. Paul Growers Association, which runs the Lowertown market and various satellite markets around the East Metro. The indoor market is simply an additional option for growers to sell products, he said, and just like the outdoor market, stalls indoors are reserved for St. Paul Growers Association growers.
“Every little thing we can add just benefits the growers,” said Jake Jordan, owner of Woodbury-based Jordan Seeds and a longtime market board member. “In the old days, you could make your living on the farm. Now, just about everybody’s got to do something more, and this gives them more opportunity to do that. Rather than being out in the cold where your stuff is freezing, you can be in here.”
The eventual plan is for the public-facing retail space to take on a country store-type feel, with fridges and grocery shelves stocked with products and prepared foods made by the market’s vendors. However, this presents some logistical questions that have yet to be worked out, Golden said, because he wants the farmers’ market to remain a farmers’ market and not turn into a grocery store or restaurant.
St. Paul Farmers’ Market executive director Jim Golden, from left, marketing manager Kelly Meier and general contractor Terry Erickson in the new indoor farmers’ market in Lowertown St. Paul on Oct 11, 2025, which is set to open Nov. 1. No changes are planned to the longstanding outdoor market as the organization prepares to expand into the space once occupied by Black Dog Cafe. (Jared Kaufman / Pioneer Press)
“We have to make sure we stay within our lane, which is that we’re the guys who set up spaces for all these entrepreneurs to be in business,” Golden said. “There’s a temptation for us to get in the kitchen, start making food, but we can’t do that. There are growers who also want to do that and they’d be better at it, so let’s provide them a good safe space to do it.”
That’s where the kitchen comes in: About a third of the space’s total 6,000-square-foot footprint is an industrial kitchen and prep area. Growers will be able to rent the kitchen to produce value-added items like jam, bread, pickles and more in a commercially licensed kitchen, rather than at home under a cottage food license, which allows for greater flexibility in where the products can be sold and can help entrepreneurs expand their businesses, Golden said.
“This is kind of the incubator, a great starting point,” Jordan said.
In one form or another, an indoor market in Lowertown has been in the works for several decades. One proposal in the late 2000s would’ve constructed an indoor market on the ground floor of the aptly named Lofts at Farmers Market apartment building. That project proved too expensive, Golden said, and the market was ultimately dropped from the building plans in the early 2010s. (That ground-floor space became home to Big River Pizza from 2015 until it closed this summer.)
Since then, Golden has kept an eye out for options to expand the market indoors in a financially responsible way that continues to support the market’s member growers, he said.
The St. Paul Farmers’ Market signed a lease agreement for the former Black Dog Cafe space in early July, Golden said. Black Dog, after taking over what was Kuppernicus Coffee Gallery in 1997, operated as a jazzy Lowertown hotspot until a relatively surprising closure in early 2022.
Some changes needed to be made after several vacant years — light fixtures were replaced, bathrooms were refurbished, the corner stage was removed to allow for better accessibility — but “we weren’t swinging sledgehammers,” Golden said.
Once the indoor market gets into a rhythm, he said, he also hopes the space will host other community gatherings such as cooking demos and music performances.
“There are ways to utilize this space that we haven’t even thought of, and there are going to be benefits to this that we haven’t even seen yet,” Golden said. “This neighborhood changes depending on what time and day it is, so we’ll need to change it up.”
“But we won’t get too fancy, and we’ll just be who we are,” he continued. “Less on frills, and more on just good food and vegetables.”
St. Paul Farmers’ Market indoor market: 308 Prince St.; 651-261-7104; stpaulfarmersmarket.com
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