Riverside Market, Christchurch

Riverside Market opened in 2019 on a central Christchurch block beside the Avon, part of the slow refilling of a city centre that spent years as car parks and hoardings. It is a two-level covered hall: produce, butchers, a fishmonger, cheese and bread on the ground floor, and a ring of small kitchens above cooking Vietnamese, Japanese, Turkish, Italian and a good deal else, with communal tables in the middle. A covered laneway runs off it towards Cashel Street with more stalls. It is a modern market rather than an old one, and it works as the central city's canteen more than as a place people do their weekly shopping.

History

The market opened on 28 September 2019 on a site beside the City Mall that had been cleared after the Christchurch earthquakes and then held the Re:START container mall. Its founders, Mike Percasky, Kris Inglis and Richard Peebles, had already run a smaller food hall in the city, the Little High Eatery, and modelled this one on food markets in Melbourne and Copenhagen; they bought the land from the rebuild agency Ōtākaro for NZ$11.5 million, and the development cost NZ$80 million. By 2024 it held about 100 small businesses and drew some 10,000 visitors a day (Wikipedia, Riverside Market).

What to look for

• The ground floor stalls - Canterbury produce, meat, fish, cheese and bread under one roof.
• The upper food counters - a couple of dozen small kitchens around a shared eating floor.
• The laneway - the covered walkway linking the hall towards Cashel Street.
• The river frontage - the Avon and the rebuilt blocks along the terrace outside.

When to go

Open daily, busiest between noon and two on weekdays when the office crowd arrives, and through Saturday. Come slightly early or late if you want a table without hovering. Produce stalls trade best in the morning. Evenings are quieter than you would expect, since much of central Christchurch still empties out after work.

Things to know

Prices are market-hall prices, well above a supermarket for the same produce, and the food counters are not cheap either. Seating at peak means circling with a tray. It is a purpose-built development from 2019, so anyone expecting a historic market hall gets polished concrete and good lighting instead. Parking nearby is metered and awkward at midday.

Nearby

The Botanic Gardens, Cathedral Square and the Christchurch Art Gallery are all within a short walk.

Key facts