Healdsburg's Farmers Market Heads Into December Under Its First Permanent Roof

Renee Kiff, whose family owns Ridgeview Farm, has kept a list of every place the Healdsburg Farmers' Market has set up since 1978. In the Press Democrat's account, the list includes an abandoned prune-drying plant at Haydon and East streets, a tiny space in an alley, and the empty lot where Hotel Healdsburg now stands. From the late 1990s until this year, the market ran in the parking lot behind that hotel.

The building at 3 North Street spent years marked for demolition and replacement with more parking. That building is the circa-1922 Cerri agricultural warehouse. Kiff credited former market manager Mary Kelley as the first person she knew who saw a chance to save it, and the same Press Democrat story quotes her: "Many times, the old building and its space could have been scraped for other ideas but by some means, often due to lack of funding, the Cerri Building remained and waited."

That building is now the Foley Family Community Pavilion. The market is now finishing its first season there. Healdsburg's third-oldest-in-the-state certified market has a roof for the first time, and the stretch from October to December is when that roof has the most to do.

How the Cerri Building Became a Pavilion

The project began with family money and ended with public money as well. The Healdsburg Tribune reported that the Foley Family Charitable Foundation first offered $7 million in 2020. Courtney and Carol Foley persuaded their father, Bill Foley, to make that gift. By the Press Democrat's later account, the pledge grew to $7.5 million and the City of Healdsburg added $2.5 million. The same paper puts the facility's total cost at $10.4 million, so the published figures don't add up to one clean budget.

Courtney Foley, executive vice president of Foley Family Wines & Spirits, led the effort. She told the Press Democrat that when her family arrived in Healdsburg in 2010, "it was evident how in tune the town is agriculturally," and she called the market "a central node for locals doing their weekly shopping."

Over more than 18 months, crews took the warehouse down to its studs. They poured a new foundation and added a metal facade and a new canopy built to show off the original trusses. The finished building has a stage and a sound system. The brick plaza outside was designed to collect rainwater the city can use in summer. The Tribune's 2023 design coverage describes a full roof over a 5,200-square-foot pavilion. Its construction coverage adds a kitchen, restrooms and permeable parking. The City held its ribbon cutting on December 15, 2025, and the market's spring pop-up on March 21 was its first day in the space.

On Saturdays, Most Farm Stands Are Outside the Roof

In her May column for the Tribune, market manager Janet Ciel explained that the Saturday market's more than 20 certified produce vendors have to be placed together, as the Department of Agriculture requires. Many of them sell from large trucks that take two or three spaces, so all of them set up in the parking lot or on North Street. The City closes North Street between City Hall and Little Saint on market days to give shoppers more room, Sonoma Magazine reported.

The roof is also flexible in bad weather. Ciel described that flexibility to the Press Democrat before the season opened:

"On bad weather days we can squeeze a few more vendors onto the platform, so we can have as many vendors as possible attend. This means customers are protected too, obviously, and even on stormy or blazing days we will have good-sized markets worth attending."

The stage took some getting used to. According to a March Tribune report, Ciel admitted she wasn't a fan at first, because vendors can't drive onto the stage and everything has to go up by stairs or a ramp. She has since come around to it. She said the stage can host the Pumpkin and Zucchini Festivals, the info booth and nonprofit vendors, with room for at least a dozen booths if heavy rain sends vendors looking for cover.

The late-season schedule has changed since spring. In March, the Press Democrat reported a season running "through the end of November," and said Ciel had no winter market planned as of press time. The market's own site and the City calendar now both list the Saturday season as April 11 through December 19, 2026, from 8:30 a.m. to noon. The market is also taking applications for a November and December craft market at the pavilion. It runs rain or shine, with 10-by-10 booths for work made by the artists themselves.

Wet Saturdays in late autumn will be the first real test of the arrangement Ciel described: farm trucks out in the lot, while the platform makes room for whoever needs cover.

What Else the City Booked Under It in 2026

The farmers market wasn't the pavilion's only tenant this year. The City's 2026 Master Calendar of Events, last updated August 12, lists a run of non-market bookings, several labeled "Pavilion Pilot Event."

The pavilion's opening weekend in March paired the market pop-up with the Vamos al Tianguis night market and a Community Housing and Resource Fair. The City's calendar describes Vamos al Tianguis as a night market with food, handmade goods, live music and cultural performances, held at the pavilion.

Music, film, pets, Oaxacan dance and a rail opening all ended up under the same roof. Lou Preston of Preston Farm & Winery predicted that kind of range before the doors opened. "As a farmer I would have hoped that food promotion/education/sales would be [the pavilion's] primary use," he told the Press Democrat, "but the Foley Building will be an effective focus for the community and will surely support some interesting activities."

Tuesday Moved Two Blocks

Saturday came to the pavilion from a parking lot. Tuesday came from the Plaza, and that move was more contested. In late 2025, market board chair Shalie Jonker asked the City Council to keep the Tuesday market on the Plaza for one more year, so the public could get used to the new site, according to the Tribune's coverage of that meeting. The City wanted both markets in the building it had built for them. Ciel wrote in May that the move "was not something the management, vendors or the community wanted."

The Tuesday market opened at the pavilion on May 12 and ran until 1 p.m. through September 29. Its layout is the reverse of Saturday's. About a dozen farms with smaller vehicles sold mostly under the roof. Quail & Condor and Downtown Bakery and Creamery returned, two new farms joined, and the market added a meat vendor, a coffee vendor and Edgeworks Sharpening Service as a regular. Ciel named attendance as the main concern. On the Plaza, hotel guests and downtown workers could step out and shop. Management hoped customers would walk the less-than-two-block distance. No attendance figures for the season have been published.

The Plaza kept its own Tuesdays. The City's Tuesdays in the Plaza series ran May 26 through August 25, alongside the market at North Street. Healdsburg's weekday civic life now runs from two places a short walk apart.

The Rest of the Fall, by Address

With the Tuesday market done for the year, the rest of the calendar happens at the pavilion, on the Plaza and in the downtown streets:

• Saturdays through December 19, Foley Family Community Pavilion, 3 North St. The certified market runs from 8:30 a.m. to noon, and the City calendar confirms October 17 and October 31.
• Saturday, October 24, 4 to 6 p.m., the pavilion. The free Howl-O-Ween Pet Parade, presented by the Humane Society of Sonoma County and the City, is collecting pet-food donations.
• Sunday, October 25, noon to 6 p.m., Healdsburg Plaza. Corazón Healdsburg co-organizes the 10th annual Día de Muertos, with a community altar, children's activities, live music, a car show and food.
• Thursday, November 26, downtown streets. The Rotary Club of Healdsburg Sunrise puts on the Healdsburg Turkey Trot.
• Friday, December 4, Healdsburg Plaza. Merry Healdsburg, from Community Services and the Healdsburg Chamber of Commerce.

The two halves of the season both come from Corazón Healdsburg. It brought Pachanga & Art to the pavilion in September and returns to the Plaza for Día de Muertos in October. The Plaza still hosts the town's signature street celebrations. North Street now hosts the weekly ones, and from December 4 to December 19 the two calendars overlap.

The Saturday market's last day of 2026 is December 19 at the pavilion, 8:30 a.m. to noon.

If you'd like to talk about how the pavilion's growing role around North Street affects a home you own or are considering, The Shone Group is glad to share what we're seeing on the ground. Let's Get Started.