One of Loja’s best kept secrets is its abundant municipal fresh markets or ‘mercados.’ Other cities in Ecuador are trending towards private national grocery chains and ‘big box stores’ that sell food, both of which Loja has, but our city’s traditional fresh produce markets are still in their heyday. Avid cooks along with fresh fruit and veggie devotees have the best of each type of grocery shopping: modern supermarkets and Loja’s mercados with their profusion of locally grown foods piled literally to the roof. It’s your choice.
North Americans have less recent experience with large urban public markets which are still an important part of retail food distribution in Europe, Asia, and South America. These large markets developed as cities, including in the US and Canada, modernized their road and sanitation systems in the early Victorian era. Urban governments in developed countries built and maintained public markets to ensure a steady food supply for their populations that was vended under clean conditions with control of the weights and measures in use. Many of them also became a collection point for charity provisions for the needy. Nothing was wasted.
Loja has two large public mercados and a number of smaller neighborhood mercado locations. The city center’s market on 18 de noviembre (video) is a multiple story affair with a subterranean parking garage, as well as a first floor with fresh produce, local meats, and seafood direct from Ecuador’s coast that covers half a city block. The second floor has kiosks selling homemade candy, a profusion of clothing and small houseware vendors, and a food court. During the pandemic the open air third floor was given to informal or unlicensed produce street vendors in a move to get them safely off the sidewalks. While other city’s mercados shrink their services, Loja’s are expanding.
The second large mercado, just north of the landmark ‘City Gate,’ sprawls for several urban blocks and is surrounded by a lively retail district that has everything for sale including small farm animals. The complex known as the Mayorista and Gran Colombia market, has an overwhelming amount of fresh produce, seafood, meat and prepared food counters. Spices, premixed brightly colored fresh saison or salsas for marinating the meat, poultry, and seafood for sale, dried beans and fresh soup mixes, and rows of the famous fresh herbs that make up Loja’s delicious horchata tea are on display daily. One of the buildings is devoted to clothing and small housewares, and an entire open air parking lot is reserved for informal street vendors hawking produce brought in from the countryside or their home gardens. This mercado also has a wonderful outdoor section for the home gardener selling everything from rooted cuttings to handmade pots to grow them in. The external market shops and surrounding blocks have furniture and appliance stores, animal and farm supply shops, local grocery stores, specialty butchers, pharmacies, small restaurants, hardware and ‘plastico’ stores with every sort of plate, pot, and Tupperware-style container imaginable. A short walk across the river to the east is also a small strip mall with Loja’s first ‘big box’ discount food store.
Last but certainly not least are Loja’s neighborhood mercados each with their own style and reason for visiting. On the south side of downtown is the small mercado named for its location in La Tebaida barrio. The market is conveniently located across from a branch of Supermaxi, the largest grocery chain in Ecuador. The chain has recently doubled the size of its strip mall to include many trendy clothing stores and is bookended by one the largest national home and garden stores in Ecuador. The most exciting time to visit La Tebaida’s mercado, which is more sedately open for business during the week, is on Saturday morning when the surrounding blocks close to auto traffic and become the largest street market in the city. Even if this crowded bazaar with almost impassable alleys jammed with produce is a little too much excitement for your everyday shopping needs, it is worthwhile to experience it at least once while in Loja.
Another neighborhood mercado of note, north of La Tebaida, is in Loja’s historic San Sebastian Square. The mercado shares this location with a church of the same name, the city’s largest permanent outdoor stage, and a clock tower monument to Loja’s brief independence and participation in the liberation of Ecuador from Spanish colonial domination. The square is ringed by authentic adobe colonial houses with their characteristic spindled balcony promenades. San Sebastian mercado has a colonial feel with beautifully arranged produce displays both inside and outside the building. San Sebastian is also a great place to sample Loja’s award winning locally grown coffee in one of the many artisanal cafes in and around the square. Our favorite is a place with a second floor outdoor balcony dining room where you can sip your coffee, have a fresh baked bun for breakfast, and view the people walking on the square’s Spanish moss festooned tree-lined streets before you food shop with the market’s friendly vendors. San Sebastian transforms a chore into one of the beautiful things in life.
Life in Loja hopes you have found this blog helpful. If you would like more information about food shopping in Loja or would like to take our well-reviewed English language city tour that includes the public mercados, contact us by email, or phone/WhatsApp at 593-098-674-5994.
Life In Loja is registered under Ecuador’s department of intellectual rights as of 2022.
Images: LaHora, Municipality of Loja, RadioLoja97.7
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