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Thursday Night: Inside Running a Booth at San Luis Obispo's Weekly Farmers' Market

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A large crowd at the weekly Downtown SLO Farmers Market on March 6, 2025.  (Photo/Roman Noravian) BY: ROMAN NORAVIAN Every Thursday night at 6 p.m., five blocks of Higuera Street in downtown San Luis Obispo turn into a bustling hub of activity, with Cal Poly students, locals, and tourists all packing the road. This is the Downtown SLO Farmers Market, which has over 100 booths and runs year-round, according to Downtown SLO’s website. At the market, attendees can purchase a wide range of products, including produce from local farmers, food, and jewelry. “It takes about 20 hours [to prepare offsite], and then once we get here, we have the setup [down] super quick now, probably around 15 minutes,” SLO Meltdown owner Jenny Thompson said. Even though each booth only has around a three hour window to sell their products, Poke Morro owner Carmen Leyva said they don’t view one another as competitors. “I can go to any booth and ask for any dish and they won’t charge me for it,” Leyva said. “...
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The Wet Job of Reviewing Water: A Profile on Waterreviewsbynick

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Nick Taylor (@waterreviewsbynick) sips water from his water bottle. (Photo/Roman Noravian) BY: ROMAN NORAVIAN A cornerstone of social media is food reviews, but you'd be hard-pressed to find an account dedicated to reviewing drinking water at a college campus. This is exactly what Cal Poly first-year physics major Nick Taylor does on his Instagram account @waterreviewsbynick.  He finds different water bottle filling stations at Cal Poly's various residential and academic buildings, chugs the water, and then rates it on a scale of one to 10. What inspired you to start the @waterreviewsbynick page? Nick Taylor: I think it was just I had an argument with a friend about how fast I could chug a liter of water. And I was like, you what would be funny? If I just started chugging a liter of water and then posted it to Instagram.
And initially the idea was I would not even give it a review. I would just go, that's water or that's not water. How do you decide which water filling ...
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Burgers with a Side of Jesus: Jesus Burger Cal Poly

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BY: ROMAN NORAVIAN Walking across the yakʔitʸutʸu quad at 6 p.m. on Jan. 31, it was hard to ignore the buzz of activity–and delicious smells–coming from the communal grills outside of the elewexe residence hall. People were here for Jesus Burgers, a group that cooks up and distributes free burgers to students every other Friday from 6 to 9 p.m., according to its Instagram . The group, which is run by current Cal Poly students and a few outside helpers, is not affiliated with the popular Jesus Burgers in Isla Vista. "The heart behind [Jesus Burgers] is to bring people together for some free food and then share the gospel with them," said Nicholas Mayton, a fifth-year construction management major at Cal Poly. According to Mayton, Jesus Burgers was started a year and a half ago. The funds for the burgers came from one of his friends, who got the money from offerings collected at a house church he used to run.  In addition to free food, Jesus Burgers provides students with a pla...
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Learning By Scooping: Inside the Cal Poly Creamery's Weekly Drive-Thru

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Wheels of cheddar cheese aging in the Cal Poly Creamery's freezer. All three of the creamery's cheddar cheeses need to age for a minimum of six months. (Photo/Roman Noravian) BY ROMAN NORAVIAN Although drive-thru’s were banned in San Luis Obispo in 1982, if one were to venture to the outskirts of Cal Poly’s campus, they would find a lone drive-thru that routinely draws long lines. This is the Cal Poly Creamery’s weekly drive-thru, which operates from noon to 4 p.m. most Fridays and is located at the Dairy Products Technology Center, 1 Grand Ave. During this time, students and residents can drive up and order from a diverse selection of cheeses and ice cream. On a sunny Friday afternoon, business at the creamery was steady. Customers, waiting in a line of cars, placed orders with workers at their windows. After a few minutes, workers would emerge from the creamery with trays laden with delectable dairy products. The roster of seven cheeses includes fromage blanc, smoked Gouda,...
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Farm Fresh: SLO Restaurants Ahead of the Curve When It Comes to Sustainable Dining

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BY: ROMAN NORAVIAN At first glance, it doesn’t seem like there’s anything special about SLO Ranch Farms and Marketplace, a mix-use retail space located in the San Luis Ranch community.  A plate of tacos from Luna Red in downtown San Luis Obispo. Luna Red is one of the multiple restaurants in SLO that source their ingredients from local vendors. (Photo/Roman Noravian) However, if one was to do a little digging (no pun intended), they’d find out that some of the ingredients used at restaurants occupying the space are grown in-house, according to an article from KSBY . Given San Luis Obispo’s vibrant dining scene–the city was named as one of the United States’ top foodie cities by Yelp in 2022 –it’s unsurprising that some of its restaurants have already adopted this growing industry trend, known as farm-to-table dining. The idea behind the practice of farm-to-table dining is that restaurants get their supplies from local farms or vendors, which is more sustainable than ordering from l...
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