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But today, the downtown market will literally be overflowing with food, music and special events as it celebrates its anniversary and autumn with the annual Harvest Breakfast.
More than a dozen standholders will be setting up shop outside the 120-year-old building from 8 a.m. to noon. They'll be offering hot breakfast food — from sweets to sausage, including all sorts of eggs from omelets to breakfast burritos.
Inside Central Market, visitors can win door prizes and listen to music as they enjoy shopping for the usual fare of produce, meats, baked goods, flowers and gifts.
"It's really a celebration," said Susan Stoeckl, of Susan's Secret Garden market stand, one of the key organizers behind this year's event.
"It's a celebration of market, of autumn and all our beloved regulars," Stoeckl said.
Weather permitting, entertainment will include live music, with performances by Vinegar Creek and Trixi in the Matrix, which Stoeckl hopes "will add to the combined festive atmosphere."
The new "Fresh From Central Market Cookbook: Favorite Recipes from the Standholders of the Nation's Oldest Farmers Market, Central Market in Lancaster, Pennsylvania" will make its sales debut today at the Harvest Breakfast.
The cookbook, compiled by Phyllis Pellman Good, features recipes from the market's standholders and customers.
Eastland Alpacas and Lancaster General Hospital also will have displays outside market.
"It's exciting," Stoeckl said, admitting that it's also "a lot of extra work."
The planning committee, consisting of Stoeckl, Wendy Jo Hess (Wendy Jo's Homemade) and Holly Cumpston, (The Goodie Shop), has been working on the Harvest Breakfast for the past six months.
"We're friends, so it was really more like a night out," Stoeckl said.
From there, they'd pass along their ideas to Michael Ervin, the market master, and "the volunteers who make it all happen."
Stoeckl, 41, of Pequea Township, said she became a standholder by chance a little more than two years ago.
She was walking through Central Market when she spotted a "help wanted" sign.
Her children were in school and she had been working for a home decor company.
When she stopped and started talking to the standholder, one thing led to another and before long, Stoeckl said, she had bought the business.
Soon, she was selling garden-inspired gifts, custom-made wreaths and dried flowers.
"There are long hours," Stoeckl said, "and I'm still learning … but I love it. I love being here."
Today, Stoeckl said, her supportive family, including husband, Joe, plus children Meredith, 11, and Wyatt, 13, will become her staff as they help her out at market.
As a lifelong Lancaster County resident and new standholder, Stoeckl said she has a growing appreciation of Central Market's uniqueness.
There are still the faithful Lancaster patrons, combined with new customers who are discovering Central Market in person and through its new Web site.
This year, Stoeckl said, standholders are expecting a larger-than-usual crowd for the Harvest Breakfast.
"We're calling it a perfect storm," Stoeckl said, with a barbershop quartet convention at the Lancaster County Convention Center, parents weekend at Franklin & Marshall College, and the "beloved regulars" who shop downtown every Saturday.
"It's a one-day wonder," Stoeckl said. "I love it."
