Jackson's Summer Markets Are Done. Where Does Local Food Go Until December?

"There will be months that you'll be showing up at The Farm and you cannot source a specific product," Shelby Belote told the Jackson Hole News&Guide in September. "That is how food is truly grown."

Belote is the founder of The Farm, a nonprofit local-food shop going into the Miller House at 211 E. Broadway Ave., on the corner of Bruun Boulevard. Her warning about seasonality is honest, and it also explains why the shop exists. In town, local food has always followed the calendar, and right now the calendar has a hole in it. For the first time, a permanent storefront is being built to fill holes like this one.

Seven weeks without a market

The summer season ended in stages. The Summer People's Market on the Center for the Arts lawn held its last Wednesday on September 23. The Jackson Hole Farmers Market closed out its Town Square season three days later, on Saturday, September 26. The Center for the Arts listed one last event, the Farm to Fork Festival on October 4 and 5, with a special Saturday market.

The next market in town is the Winter People's Market on November 21 at the Community Fairgrounds Building, 305 W. Snow King Ave. Slow Food in the Tetons marks that date as new for the 2026–27 season. From the end of the festival to that first winter market is 47 days, almost seven weeks. For those weeks, anyone in town who wants to buy straight from the ranchers and growers they met on the Square all summer has no market to do it at.

Farmers notice this gap as much as shoppers do. Growers told Belote that having nowhere to sell over the winter was a critical gap that made it hard to keep a farm viable, according to the News&Guide. "All I did was listen to them," she said.

A shop in the Miller House

The Quinn Hill Foundation acquired and preserved the historic Miller House to give local food a permanent home, according to The Farm's website. The site describes the shop as a year-round market and gathering place. The News&Guide reports it will be open every day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The website still says "Opening October 2026" and gives no specific date. In August, Buckrail reported the shop would open once all formal approvals were stamped, likely within four to six weeks. As of October 12, no opening day has been announced, so the website is the place to watch.

Here is what will be on the shelves and how the shop is set up:

• Stock: produce, meat, cheese, fermented foods and baked goods. The News&Guide reports these will come from six Wyoming counties and two in Idaho. Buckrail reported contracts with 50 businesses across six western Wyoming counties.
• Pricing: a bit higher than a grocery store, partly offset by philanthropy, according to the News&Guide.
• Payment: the shop will accept SNAP.
• Classes: a classroom for workshops led by farmers on how food is grown. Belote says farmers asked for that too.
• A first for the county: Buckrail reports The Farm will be the first year-round, brick-and-mortar storefront in Teton County to operate under the Wyoming Food Freedom Act. That is the state's cottage food law, which allows sales of homemade, uninspected products.

Belote has raised $1 million to cover equipment and three years of operating costs, including grants from the Teton Conservation District and the Wyoming Department of Family Services. Buckrail reports that the state grant money is expected to pay for walk-in cold storage, freezer rooms and a paved area where producers can drop off deliveries.

Why cold storage decides what you can buy in February

Belote spent four or five years looking for a building, and it had to be big enough to hold real refrigeration. "For farmers to be able to access Jackson, some of them are driving eight hours round trip," she told the News&Guide. "For them to do that, they need to be able to drop for a substantial amount of time."

A Saturday market only works if the farmer drives in, sells and drives home the same day. A shop with walk-in coolers lets a rancher drop off a large load and leave it there. Buckrail describes the 4,000 to 5,000 square foot building as a regional distribution hub as well as a store, where products from across western Wyoming come in, get stored and sorted, and go back out.

The money is set up differently from a market too. The Farm runs on consignment and keeps a 10% commission, so 90% of each sale goes to the producer. Belote told Buckrail that producers usually keep about 70% of their revenue at other local markets. Belote also points out that a substantial greenhouse can be a 30-year decision, and one summer of sales comes nowhere near paying for the materials and labor. Steady income all year is what lets a farm take on a project that size.

Haderlie Farms in Thayne shows how this plays out. A few years ago Belote helped the farm build a greenhouse. Curtis Haderlie told Buckrail that last season it grew mostly greens, and winter market shoppers were glad to find lettuce, kale, arugula and scallions. "Tomatoes are incredibly popular with customers, and so we're going to see if we can grow tomatoes through the extended season," he said. "It's an experiment, so we'll see how it goes." Haderlie also said a shop customers can visit on their own schedule would cut down the hours the farm spends driving to delivery meeting points.

So whether there's a tomato from Star Valley in town this February depends on a greenhouse experiment in Thayne and on what a shop on East Broadway can keep cold.

The winter calendar, in town and out

The winter markets fill in the rest of the season, but not every date is in town. The Jackson Hole Farmers Market's winter series, which its site says is powered by the Greenhouse Project, alternates between Wister Hall at The Virginian Lodge and Hotel Terra in Teton Village. The Winter People's Market stays at the Fairgrounds the whole season.

Count only the dates in town and there are nine market afternoons between November and March, about two a month. Each lasts three hours. Even with the new November date, that's a few dozen hours of local food shopping for the whole winter. A shop open seven hours a day, every day, changes that math. Belote's warning still applies, though. What's on the shelves will follow the season.

A late-night counter on West Broadway

In August, Elisa and Tyler Nalley opened Robin's at 850 W. Broadway Ave. in the Grand Teton Plaza, a few doors down from Chinatown and Habitat for Humanity's ReStore. The space used to be Jireh's Tasty Cravings. At opening, the News&Guide reported hours of 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week, with takeout only after 4 p.m. The menu runs from eggs, waffles and crepes to boba tea, corn in a cup, tacos and quesadillas, plus a different lunch special each day. Dishing Jackson Hole confirmed in late September that it was open from 7 a.m.

Elisa Nalley also plans to bring in locally made food like tea and fresh bread. The couple told the News&Guide that one of the hardest parts of running a restaurant in Jackson is staying open through every season and drawing locals when the tourists are gone. Robin's is built for the same months as The Farm, the stretch after the summer markets end and before the first winter one.

If you'd like to know which streets put you in walking distance of the Square, the Fairgrounds and a shop like The Farm year-round, we're happy to share what we know. Let's make our hometown yours. Request a consultation with Jennifer Reichert.