The East End Food Hub, at the site of the former Homeside Florist on the busy corner of Route 25 and Route 105 in Riverhead, is reopening its doors to the public this weekend for a pop-up fair connecting residents with farmers that offer Community Supported Agriculture subscriptions. The fair kicks off a series of upcoming public events at the site, including the return of the East End Food Market on March 21.
Pictured Above: An architectural rendering of the completed East End Food Market space in the new Food Hub.
East End Food, which has ambitious plans for a campus promoting local food at the Riverhead site, is a non-profit on a mission to connect farmers, food producers, consumers and institutions that have food service programs, to ensure that food grown here isn’t wasted.
It received a $5 million grant in 2025 from New York State’s Regional Farm to School Infrastructure Grant program, $4 million of which will be used to purchase the 10-acre Food Hub property from builder Paul Pawlowski.
The former florist building has been renovated over the course of the past year for use as an indoor farmers market and community programming space, with large kitchen and food storage spaces that will be used for processing local produce.
The building received its temporary certificate of occupancy from Riverhead Town in late January and a permanent one is expected in the spring after the landscaping can be planted.
The CSA Fair on Saturday, March 7, will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. It’s a chance for “families to meet local farmers offering up shares of seasonal produce, chat with local farmers and find the right fit to enjoy the best of the East End harvest all season long,” according to an announcement from East End Food.
CSAs are subscription services in which members sign up and pay at the beginning of a growing season for a share of the farmer’s harvest throughout the year. Since the late 1980s, these types of farm businesses have provided farmers with much-needed seed capital (literally) at the beginning of a growing season, and provided consumers with a stake in the farmer’s success.
The East End Food Market, currently held at Twin Fork Beer Co., will be starting a soft return to the Food Hub on the third Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. starting in March. Pop-up farmers markets will be held on March 21, April 18, and May 16, featuring local farm, food, beverage and craft vendors.
The Food Hub is also organizing several upcoming events in partnership with Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, which “will focus on learning opportunities to support the region’s farming community.
Several evening educational sessions this spring will focus on tax preparation for farmers. A full listing of events is at eastendfood.org/calendar.
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