Pull into the lot behind Roser Memorial Community Church on a Tuesday morning and you will smell it before you see it: fresh sourdough from a folding table, cut watermelon sweating in the heat, someone's dog getting a treat handed over by a woman running a tent of all-natural biscuits shaped like bones. This is the Anna Maria Community Farmers Market, and if you have lived here longer than a season, you already know it has not always set up in this parking lot. It has not always set up on this street. Most residents who shop it weekly could not tell you why it keeps changing addresses, only that it does.
The short version is that the market has been pushed out twice in the last two years, and both times the reason had nothing to do with the market itself failing to draw a crowd. It had to do with the market outgrowing whatever was hosting it, or getting bumped by something more urgent than a Tuesday morning produce stand.
Three Addresses in Eight Years
The market started in 2018 as a city-hosted gathering at City Pier Park, right at the corner of Pine Avenue and North Bay Boulevard. That is where longtime vendors like Milagro's Produce and TJ's Produce, run by Tillman Thomas, got their start selling to the island. A handful of visitor guides still list City Pier Park as the address. That has not been accurate since 2024, when Hurricanes Helene and Milton turned the park into a staging area for recovery crews and, not long after, a temporary Anna Maria post office. The market could not run there anymore because the park was doing something more important.
That forced the first move, to The Center of Anna Maria Island, where the market ran through the 2024-25 season on the Center's athletic fields. It expanded there. More vendors, more room, a bigger footprint than it had ever had at the pier park.
Then it moved again. The market's season debut for 2025-26 landed at Roser Memorial Community Church, 512 Pine Avenue, on October 7. Thirty-nine vendors showed up on opening day, many of them market veterans going back years. The reason for this second move was almost the opposite of a crisis. Devinne "Dev" Whittaker, who co-owns DBTB Juice Bar & Bakery and manages the market, explained it plainly on opening day: the Center had spent real money renovating its athletic fields over the summer, and the market needed somewhere else to be while that work settled in. The church said yes, and according to Whittaker, said the market could set up there every year if it wanted to.
That is the detail that changes how you should read this whole story. This was not a market drifting because nobody wanted it. It was a market getting displaced by a hurricane recovery effort, then by a landlord improving its own property. Two very different problems, both solved by moving, and both, in their own way, a sign the market was doing something worth accommodating.
Who Shows Up on a Tuesday
Part of what makes this market worth tracking is that it is not a rotating cast of strangers. The same names come back season after season, which is its own kind of proof that this is a working part of island life rather than a tourist photo opportunity. On a given Tuesday behind Roser Church, you can expect to find:
- TJ's Produce, run by Tillman Thomas, an original 2018 vendor selling tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, watermelon, lettuce, citrus, cantaloupe, onions, and potatoes
- Milagro's Produce, another vendor whose roots go back to the market's first year
- DBTB Juice Bar & Bakery, the market's own organizer, selling fresh juices and sourdough baked that morning
- Dynasty Guacamole and Hahn's Handcrafted Lemonade, both regulars
- Mr. Fun Guy, a mushroom vendor who has become one of the market's steady fixtures
- A Bark Above Dog Bakery, run by Diannah Hughes, selling all-natural dog treats
- The Chubby Seacows, Bob and Jeanne Lorendo's tent of resin and sea-glass art, leather purses, and fanny packs
- Spare Kitchen, where Michael Calvino bakes fresh biscuits on site
- Sea-renity Spa, where owner Amanda Escobio sets up a massage table for anyone who wants ten minutes of relief between errands
That kind of continuity is not an accident. It reflects a market that has held onto its core vendor base through two forced relocations, which is a harder thing to pull off than it sounds.
The Rhythm You Can Set a Clock To
The market runs every Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., weather permitting, from October through April. That end date is deliberate. Thomas, the produce vendor, has pointed out that the market has never opened as early as it did for the 2025-26 season and now wraps in April instead of May specifically to beat the worst of the summer heat. If you are used to a longer season, this is the adjustment to build into your calendar.
Parking is available in the Fellowship Hall lot and across the road in the Thrift Shop lot, both a short walk from the market grounds behind the sanctuary, nestled between the church building and Lake La Vista. The travel lanes through the lot double as footpaths on market day, which gives the whole setup more breathing room than the market had at its previous address.
As of this August, the market is in its summer break, the same quiet stretch it takes every year. The Center of Anna Maria Island's own event listing for the market, still crediting the Center, Roser Church, and DBTB Juice Bar & Bakery as joint presenters, confirms the market will return in October. That three-way credit line matters. It suggests the partnership that got the market through last season's move is still intact heading into the next one, which is a better sign for stability than any single announcement could be.
Why This Address Might Be the One That Sticks
Here is the actual takeaway for anyone who has watched this market bounce around and wondered if it was ever going to settle down. The first move was forced by disaster. The second was forced by a landlord's own renovation schedule. Neither move was about the market failing to earn its keep. If anything, each relocation happened because the market kept succeeding well enough that somebody else's needs eventually collided with its own.
What is different about Roser Church is that nobody there needs the space back. There is no renovation planned, no recovery operation competing for the lot. Whittaker said the church offered to host the market every year if it wants to stay, which is a different kind of arrangement than the market has had at either of its previous stops. That does not guarantee permanence. Nothing about small nonprofit partnerships ever does. But it is the first time in this market's history that its home has been offered rather than borrowed, and that distinction is worth knowing if you are the kind of resident who plans your Tuesdays around it.
If you have been showing up at the wrong address, or skipping the market entirely because you lost track of where it landed, October is when you find out whether this one holds.
Kathy Harman has spent her career paying attention to these small shifts in how Anna Maria actually runs, because they tell you more about a neighborhood than any listing sheet ever could. If you are weighing a move to the island, or already live here and are curious what your property could mean in this market, Kathy Harman would welcome the chance to talk through your island priorities and help you find the right waterfront fit.
