The racetrack at Rillito Park hosted horse racing for decades before the grandstand went quiet. Today the oval is a dog park, the infield is a soccer pitch, and on Sunday mornings from roughly October through May, the parking lot along North First Avenue fills up with one of the oldest continuously operating farmers markets in Arizona. That last part is the reason to visit, but the park itself is the reason to stay.
I got there around 8:30 on a Sunday in March, which is early enough to find parking but late enough that the vendors are fully set up. The market runs from 8 a.m. to noon, and the serious produce shoppers arrive at opening. By the time I walked the rows, a Tucson-based citrus grower already had a small crowd around his Cara Cara oranges and blood oranges, most of them a dollar or two each. A neighboring booth was selling bunches of radishes, green garlic, and chard for prices that would embarrass any grocery store in the metro area.
The food stalls lean local in the honest sense — tamales from a woman who’s been selling here for years, handmade flour tortillas, breakfast burritos with eggs and salsa that cost around five dollars and eat like a full meal. I watched a man buy four tamales, find a bench near the old grandstand structure, and eat them in the shade like he had nowhere else to be. That felt like the correct approach.
What makes Rillito Park itself worth knowing is the scale of it. The park runs 310 acres along the Rillito River, connected on both sides by the Rillito Regional Park trail system — a paved multi-use path that links to broader Tucson trail networks and sees serious cyclists and casual walkers in roughly equal measure. After the market, I walked maybe a mile east toward the pedestrian bridge that spans the riverbed. The cottonwoods along the bank were doing what cottonwoods do in late winter, which is look slightly skeletal but still better than nothing. A great blue heron stood in the dry channel like it had business there.
The park also has a disc golf course, an equestrian area, and a set of well-maintained sports fields that see regular use on weekend mornings. There are restrooms near the market. There is shade in a few places but not everywhere, so in any month past April, plan around that.
Admission to the park is free. The farmers market charges nothing to browse, and most vendors take cards, though cash moves faster. A full lap through the market stalls runs maybe 20 minutes if you don’t stop, probably 45 if you do. I spent about eighteen dollars and left with citrus, tamales, a small jar of prickly pear jam, and a bunch of radishes I didn’t strictly need.
The market operates Sundays through mid-May, then takes a summer break and returns in fall. The park itself is open year-round from sunrise to sunset. First Avenue runs right along the western edge, so the access is simple — the main parking lot entrance is at North First Avenue and West Wetmore Road, and there’s usually overflow parking in adjacent lots on busy market days.
It’s the kind of place that’s easy to drive past and easier to underestimate. The market isn’t large. The park doesn’t have a single dramatic feature. But on a Sunday morning in March, with a breakfast burrito and nowhere urgent to be, it makes a strong case for itself.
