West Side Market

Saturday morning, after my 5am wake up, medication/fluids/food, and a short nap, Antoine and I stopped by one of my family's favorite bakeries, Fragapane Bakeries (I've been going there since I was little and the Fragapanes are longtime family friends) to load up on an assort of pastries.  With breakfast in tow we made our way to my grandparents house in Elyria where we met up with my parents, Michelle and Christian.  We chatted and ate delicious pasteries, then the "kids" made our way to Cleveland to meet up with one of my cousins, Christa.  Christa, aka Uno Lady, is a talented one woman band and an awesome cousin.

For some time now, I've wanted to check out West Side Market.  I grew up about an hour away from Cleveland, but beyond going to the Natural History Museum, the Symphony, and Indians games I didn't get to experience the city too much while I was growing up.  And West Side Market was one of those places I missed out on.  Well, lucky for us, Christa lives literally a block from WSM!  So we drove up and she showed us all around.  Unfortunately, it was WSM on a Saturday after noon...so it was jammed!  But I'm cool with that...at least you get the whole experience.  Plus, I'm used to Findlay Market on Saturdays when everyone and their mother are there.

 West Side Market resides in an awesome little area called Ohio City.  It seemed very eclectic and cool, and it's literally like a minute from downtown...cross a bridge and you're there!

 Behold West Side Market.  It was an extremely beautiful day for market going, even though almost all of the vendors are indoors!

 Inside: the ceiling is this beautiful mosaic of brick.  I loved it!

 I gotta say, the variety and selection was a tad bit overwhelming.  Luckily we had Christa there to let us in on which were the best vendors for certain items.

 My favorite part was the little balcony just over the entrance.  It's very narrow, but there's seating up there so you can grab lunch, take a seat and people watch from above.

 View from the balcony.

There were so many amazing looking lunch options within the market.  Sadly (but really not so sadly...more on that tomorrow) we already had plans for lunch!  But next time I'd love to check some of those places out!

I was pretty impressed, not only by the size of the market and the building itself, but by the variety of vendors.  I definitely want to go back and spend a couple hours there...when it's a little bit quieter.