Bonjour, spring: Wheaton French Market returns with pastries, coffee and Joni Mitchell music

Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to note that dogs are not permitted at the market.

Wheaton’s French Market has taken on a life of its own downtown.

With so much to see and do, you can easily get carried away. Daily Herald reporters Dave Oberhelman and Katlyn Smith spent a Saturday morning in the thick of it. Here’s their guide to making the most of the market:

Dave: It made perfect sense that we arranged to meet each other for the 2024 season debut of the Wheaton French Market on April 13.

What a glorious day for an opening — no need for the now 2-year-old permanent roof, though I bet it made us feel cooler underneath it.

The place was packed! I was looking forward to one of those hot, fresh doughnuts from Hahn’s Bakery out of Geneva, but there must have been a line 35-deep extending to the sidewalk at the corner of Main Street and Liberty Drive. And the line for coffee from Wheaton’s own I Have a Bean looked just as long.

Instead, I took you up on your suggestion — a pastry from St. Roger Abbey’s organic French patisserie out of Wilmette. I bought a chocolate tartlette and, yowza, that was like a chocolate bomb, so rich and filling. I also got a kick speaking with the nun who waited on me, though her French accent did throw me a little. Charming.

Tell me, did you sample anything?

Katlyn: I always take home a pastry or a country loaf of bread made by the abbey nuns. The croissants are about the size of my face.

And I couldn’t do without coffee. The I Have a Bean tent was my first stop. The line moved pretty briskly, and while you wait, you can read up on the fragrance and flavors — coffee from El Salvador’s Ataco region has an aroma of caramel, honey and cinnamon — and the roaster’s mission.

I Have a Bean employs formerly incarcerated people. The company’s motto says it all: “Elevating coffee. Redreaming lives.”

With a hot cup in hand, I started browsing. I recommend taking a lap around the market. Get the lay of the land before diving in. Get acquainted with the farmers.

Geneva’s Windy Acres Farm has quite the spread. Giant stalks of rhubarb. Fresh farm eggs, $6.50 for a dozen. I went for a carton of pillowy apple cider doughnuts.

Who did you meet at the market?

Dave: My wife and I have found that no matter where we go, we’ll likely run into someone we know.

So I should not have been surprised when one of the first people I saw, at around 9:30 a.m., was my friend Chris Alpers from Warrenville, via Wheaton. He said he attends the Wheaton French Market fairly often.

Chris likes to pick up dog treats at the market. He gets them for one of his daughters, Cassie, who has a dog.

The market is stroller-friendly, too.

Here’s a good one — those hand-carved soaps from Kankakee’s Gracie Pie Apothecary drew me in. I love those things. Upon closer inspection, some of Gracie Pie’s products were packaged by the Kankakee County Training Center for the Disabled. That’s cool.

Grace Soucie, just 18, tended her stand. I saw her name on a business card, and the last name rang a bell. It turns out that she’s the daughter of Steve Soucie of the Joliet Herald-News, whose work as a sports writer I’ve read for years.

Steve is an expert on high school football. Gracie is an expert on fragrances, therapeutical oils and such.

“Specifically,” she said, “our lavender soap is good for eczema.”

I asked her to say “Hi” to her father.

What a small world!

Katlyn: I recognized this name: Jake’s Country Meats. The family-owned farm in Cassopolis, Michigan, about a 45-minute drive from Notre Dame, is a new vendor at the market this season, but Jake’s is no stranger to the suburbs. The folks behind Prairie Food Co-op have supported this farm by offering their products at events around Lombard.

“It has more flavor,” said Isaiah Dyrst, a Jake’s salesperson manning the coolers filled with pasture-raised pork, pasture-raised chicken and grass-fed beef.

You can go hog wild here. Jake’s has everything you need for a summer barbecue: country-style ribs, spare ribs, brisket, ribeye, brats, hickory bacon, applewood bacon, cottage bacon, jowl bacon and so on.

Dave: On the way out of the market, I heard Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides, Now” being played by the solo guitarist performing on the plaza. A bunch of people enjoyed the sun as they sat at the sturdy steel tables and chairs, their children playing nearby.

I struck up a conversation with the guitarist’s mother, Joan, seated by a table of albums and CDs. She told me musician Annalee Hooson, the wife of a University of Illinois-Chicago music professor, is a 2009 Wheaton Academy graduate.

Annalee Hooson was the first artist who played the Wheaton French Market, her mother said, about 15 years ago. She played there and elsewhere — Hooson has performed worldwide and has a couple albums available on her own website — to fund missionary trips through Wheaton Academy. One she attended was to Zambia for World Bicycle Relief.

Hooson lives in Campton Hills near St. Charles, but she’s familiar in Wheaton through the French market and also at the new Subourbon whiskey and wine bar on Front Street.

The chocolate tartlette still had me full as I left.

Hope you had fun!

Katlyn: I know I’ll be going back.

If you go

What: The Wheaton French Market is operated by Bensidoun USA.

Where: Downtown, near Main Street and Liberty Drive

When: 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays through October. Then, the market will close the season with shorter hours from Nov. 2-30.

Info: bensidounusa.com