"Try this chocolate linguini, it's great with vanilla ice cream," offers Molly Sharp, a 20-something pasta seller at Seattle's 105-year-old Pike Place Market. The market, which stretches over nine acres close to Seattle's waterfront, attracts more than 10 million visitors each year. Its popularity is part of a nationwide trend, with the number of farmers markets increasing by 17 percent from 2010 to 2011.
The reason seems clear: Customers shop for locally grown and produced items, but they particularly appreciate a sense of community. Pike Place pasta seller Sharp has loved the market for as long as she can remember. In the third grade, she recalls, she sauntered among the vendors in floral leggings and a pink cloth beret, making her lunches out of free samples. Even before she started working as a vendor, Sharp said she never felt alone: "I always came here to be with people."...
