The Third Street South Market Isn't Where You Think It Is This Summer

If you've told a houseguest to meet you "at the farmers market on Third Street" this August, you've sent them to the wrong block. The market is real. The Saturday ritual is real. The address, for half the year, is not the one etched into most people's memory of the place.

That's the small, useful correction buried inside a bigger story about how much Olde Naples treats as fixed that has actually been rebuilt, relocated, or quietly paused and revived over the past few years. Two of the neighborhood's most-cited traditions, the Saturday market and the Great Dock Canoe Race, have both moved in ways that don't match the version most residents carry around in their heads.

The market that outgrew its own street

The Third Street South Farmers Market started in 1994, when Tony Ridgway, then president of the Third Street South Merchants Association, wanted a weekly reason for growers to bring their products directly to the neighborhood and for neighbors to run into each other. Ridgway stepped away for a stretch and came back as association president in 2005, staying involved even during the gap, and has led it ever since.

What began as a modest gathering has grown into roughly 60 vendors, nearly all local, agriculturally rooted businesses rather than national chains or franchise stands. Vendor selection isn't first-come, first-served. Justin Collins, director of operations at Neapolitan Enterprises, which handles the market's permitting and planning, has described a process where a panel tastes samples and reviews booth setups before adding anyone new to the lineup. Some vendors wait years to get in.

The regulars residents actually show up for include:

• Birdie's Gelato, known for scoops like lemon basil sorbet
• Inyoni Organic Farm, for produce hauled home in armfuls by kids who insist on carrying it themselves
• Dominga's Flowers, for the bouquets that end up in the crooks of everyone's arms by 9 a.m.
• Jimmy's Java, for coffee roasted locally
• Bella's Cakes, for butter and almond cookies
• Fire and Rice, where chef-owner Paul Schmidgal simmers paella on the spot

Two addresses, one Saturday

Here's the part that trips people up. From mid-November through April, the market runs directly on Third Street South, between Broad Avenue South and 13th Avenue South, the version everyone pictures when they hear "the market." But from May through November, it relocates to the nearby Neapolitan Enterprises parking lot, tucked behind Tommy Bahama between Third Street South and Gordon Drive.

Right now, in the middle of August, that means Saturday mornings are happening in the lot, not on the street itself. Same hours, 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. Same vendors, mostly. Different pavement.

It's a small logistical detail, but it's the kind of thing that only someone paying attention to this specific market, in this specific month, would know to mention.

The canoe race that isn't quite the same race

The market's seasonal shuffle is minor compared to what's happened with the Great Dock Canoe Race, a tradition whose own timeline has a real fork in it that most retellings smooth over.

It started in May 1977, when the owner of The Dock at Crayton Cove hosted a canoe race to mark his first year in business and the end of season. About 150 people showed up to watch 25 locals paddle through the cove, past the Naples Yacht Club, toward the Gordon River Bridge, and back. Over the decades it grew into a genuine spectacle, with participants decorating boats to match an annual theme, hosted by the Naples Jaycees, drawing around 1,000 spectators and 100 competitors across canoe and paddleboard heats. Event chair Matt Flores has overseen it in recent years as one of the more distinctive fixtures on the Naples calendar.

Then it broke. Between the pandemic and the sale of the Dock restaurant itself, the race went dark, with no run between 2020 and its return. When it came back in 2025, it reappeared at Baker Park, not Crayton Cove, under organizers who describe themselves as reviving the tradition with new energy rather than simply picking up where the old event left off. They call it the Great Canoe Races of Naples.

So depending on which thread you're following, a Naples resident today has two overlapping stories: a Jaycees-run race that some accounts describe as still active at its original course, and a separately organized revival at Baker Park built after a multi-year gap. If you're planning to tell out-of-town friends "it's the same race that's been happening since the '70s," it's worth knowing that claim is more complicated than it sounds, and worth checking which version is actually on the calendar before you show up at the wrong dock.

A closing window at the Depot Museum

There's a way to see both threads of that history in one stop, and the window for it is short. The Naples Depot Museum, at 1051 5th Avenue South, is running a retrospective exhibit called The Battle of the Paddle: The Great Dock Canoe Race, covering the nearly 50-year arc of the tradition through photographs, themed entries, and the awards that have defined it. The exhibit runs only through August 29.

That gives residents about two weeks to walk through it, and it pairs naturally with a Fifth Avenue dinner or a Saturday stop after the market, without competing for the same evening.

What this actually adds up to

None of this is really about a market or a boat race. It's about how easy it is to assume a neighborhood tradition is static just because it's been around for decades. Third Street South's market has an address that changes with the calendar. The canoe race has a history that broke and came back somewhere else, under someone else's stewardship. The version of Olde Naples that feels permanent is, in practice, being actively maintained, relocated, and in the canoe race's case, rebuilt by people making real decisions about where and how it continues.

If you live here, that's worth knowing before you send the next houseguest to the wrong block, or explain a tradition to a newcomer as though nothing about it has ever changed.

For everything else about how Olde Naples actually works, not just this season but over time, Burnham Group keeps paying attention to the details that don't show up on a map. Let's Connect if you ever want to talk about what else is shifting in this neighborhood.