Lively NeighborFood Market

Lively NeighborFood Market Rooted in Community. Cultivating Connections. We are a year-round, indoor “farm stop” market that opened in April 2024 in Southwest Leelanau County.

We feature local produce, meats, dairy, bakery items, specialty artisan foods, and everyday groceries! We are creating a neighborhood-based food hub for the southwest Leelanau County community. Imagine a place where farmers and families can mingle amid shelves of delicious, plentiful, locally grown food. A space not just for buying food but also for growing connections, nurturing health, and foste

ring sustainability. That place is coming! It’s the Lively NeighborFood Market. Our Mission is to grow the local food economy right here in southwest Leelanau County. We want to support and highlight a connection between the customer and the farmer.

TOMORROW! One of our community’s favorite days of the whole year. The Annual Empire Asparagus Festival. We love any excu...
06/05/2026

TOMORROW! One of our community’s favorite days of the whole year. The Annual Empire Asparagus Festival. We love any excuse to close down the streets and gather for food & music with our neighbors.

Get in on this hyper-local tradition and meet us there. We’ll be bringing our famous UP style pasties filled with asparagus, and our NeighborFood Kitchen partners will be cooking up a mouthwatering spread of Asian BBQ pork sliders with asparagus slaw, asparagus potato salad, and savory asparagus and prosciutto pastry (all the photos featured here!)

🎸We are so excited to announce our new summer event that the Lively’s have been working on for the better part of a year...
06/04/2026

🎸We are so excited to announce our new summer event that the Lively’s have been working on for the better part of a year. 🎸

Get ready to join us for an unforgettable weekend hosting our first ever:

🔥 Backyard Blues, Brews, and Barbeque Festival 🔥

Friday and Saturday, August 7th and 8th here at Lively Acres!

Gather your friends, pack a lawn chair, and come hungry for a summer weekend filled with live blues music from across the state, ice cold beer from and mouthwatering Midwest bbq prepared on-site at our Market Kitchen.

The weekend kicks off on Friday at 7 PM with Sugar Mae’s Blues Camp - an acoustic evening around the bonfire hosted by Northern Michigan historian and singer-songwriter Captain Dirk.

On Saturday, the music kicks off at 3:00 PM with blues musicians The Brendon Linsley Band and the The Fabulous Horndogs. We are thrilled to announce that award-winning blues powerhouse Thornetta Davis - Detroit’s Queen of the Blues - is our headliner for the evening delivering a performance you wont want to miss!

TICKETS are $35 in advance and $40 day of event, and are available now on our new event website, www.livelyacres.com.

DETAILS

• LOCATION: Backyard Blues, Brews, and Barbeque will take place on the grounds of Lively Acres at 3801 W Empire Highway, Empire, MI 49630

• AGES: This event is family-friendly and open to all ages. Photo ID is required to purchase alcohol. Dogs are not permitted in our festival area.

• CAMPING is available at . We offer RV, tent, and rustic cabin camping as well as potable water fill stations and 4 clean portable toilets (no showers)

• FOOD: Our Lively NeighborFood Market is open all weekend to stock up on ice cold beverages, snacks, fresh summer produce, and prepared takeout food. Food during the event will feature housemade bbq with vegan, vegetarian, dairy free and gluten free options available.

Questions?

Call us at (231) 994-9339 or email us at [email protected]

We’ve been loving the weather just as much as you’d expect, and sure love seeing all of you + our farmers bringing us fr...
06/01/2026

We’ve been loving the weather just as much as you’d expect, and sure love seeing all of you + our farmers bringing us fresh, local food daily. ☀️

We have some June updates for you:

Our summer hours begin TODAY! We’re now open at 9:00 a.m. during the week and close at 7:00 p.m.

Stop in all week for fresh eats from our Kitchen! This week you can enjoy Indian Takeout on Wednesday, Yooper Pasties on Thursday, Fresh Falafel Pita on Fridays (we make plenty for the weekend), and catch us at Asparagus Fest this Saturday in Empire at the food tents! We’ll be there making asparagus pasties and enjoying the afternoon along with our kitchen friends who are creating some seriously tasty asparagus bites for you all. We wrap up (or start, for you purists) the weekend with our cozy Sunday Brunch ☀️

Summer is ON. We can’t wait to see you ☀️

* Please note, our produce inventory changes daily - we cannot guarantee we’re in stock of all the items listed at the time of this posting, please call ahead if you’d like to check our availability of any products.

05/30/2026

Reminder! Our Sunday Brunch is back and we've been loving seeing you all again. Come on over tomorrow from 9:30 AM - 1:00 PM for farm-to-table fresh food, prepared from scratch in our Lively Kitchen and served in a warm and welcoming cafe space. Bottomless coffee, sweet and savory entrees, and very family-friendly.

We hope to see you this summer at Brunch!

Thank you so much to our friends, volunteers, neighbors, visitors, family & community for making our Second Annual Neigh...
05/25/2026

Thank you so much to our friends, volunteers, neighbors, visitors, family & community for making our Second Annual NeighborFest such a wonderful and memorable day!

It was an all hands on deck effort to get this fundraiser set up, and when event days are rainy you often wonder if if anyone will show up - and you did! So thank you for coming out, and helping us to show appreciation for and raise funds for LIFT and Empire Area Community Center (EACC).

We’d like to thank our emcees Emily and Ian Alt, our sound and stage crew, and our talented local musicians who all volunteered their time to play some magical and rompus sets for our guests:

The Burdickville Boys
Luke Woltanski
Fern & Faj
Clint Weaner
Fabulous Horn Dogs

Great food, good times, everything we stand for! Rooted in Community, Cultivating Connections!

Happy Memorial Day to all, as a reminder we are closed today and will open tomorrow at 11 AM.

Welcome to NeighborFest!The festivities kick off at 1:00 PM - and we’re glad to say the rain has passed and the sun is d...
05/24/2026

Welcome to NeighborFest!

The festivities kick off at 1:00 PM - and we’re glad to say the rain has passed and the sun is due later on.

Join us for an afternoon of food, live music from local acts, and plenty of good neighbor times all to fundraise for and support and the Empire Area Community Center (EACC).

We have classic picnic fare of hotdogs, hamburgers, brats, and sides along with baked goods from and our Market offerings of falafel pitas, deli salads, and snacks.

📍 Find us at 3805 West Empire Highway in Empire, 20 minutes from Traverse City in the heart of Leelanau County.

We hope to see you!

We’re excited for a fun weekend with you all!Here’s some Memorial Day Weekend Market reminders for you:HOURSSaturday: 9 ...
05/23/2026

We’re excited for a fun weekend with you all!

Here’s some Memorial Day Weekend Market reminders for you:

HOURS

Saturday: 9 AM - 7 PM
Sunday: 9 AM - 3 PM
Monday: Closed
Tuesday - Friday: 11 AM - 7 PM

HAPPENINGS

Saturday: Open Mic Night from 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Sunday: NO BRUNCH, NeighborFest starts at 1:00 PM!
Monday: Closed

Our Leelanau Perennials Plant Sale is happening all weekend long - locally grown trees, shrubs, and natives.

NEIGHBORFEST

• Family Friendly FREE event from 1:00 PM - 7:00 PM

• Picnic food available for purchase, all proceeds go to and Empire Area Community Center

• Live music all day! Please bring a lawn chair. We have limited picnic tables.

• BYOB

• No dogs please!

• We will not have indoor bathrooms available for the event. Portable toilets are available. Please note we do not have ADA accessible portable toilets at this time.

Have fun this weekend, and a thank you to all of our servicemembers who we will be taking time to honor this Monday.

Let’s give it up for this guy, his wonderful business partner, life partner and wife Kelly, their beautiful family, and ...
05/22/2026

Let’s give it up for this guy, his wonderful business partner, life partner and wife Kelly, their beautiful family, and the crew for making it through the second Northern Michigan winter as the Lively NeighborFood Market with such perseverance & grit.

It’s no easy feat starting a small, independently-owned grocery market these days, and especially difficult when you live in a rural community with a highly seasonal economy and a 7 month “off-season”. 😳

But we’re here. And we’re ready to celebrate!

✨ Please join us this Memorial Day weekend at Lively Acres for our Second Annual NeighborFest on Sunday, May 24 from 1 p.m - 7 p.m.

✨ NeighborFest is our way of giving back by fundraising for two local organizations that make our region a better place. This year, all proceeds from our food sales will go to and the Empire Area Community Center (EACC).

🫜Details:

🫜NeighborFest is a free & family-friendly afternoon with live music and food available for purchase made fresh from our NeighborFood Kitchen! We’ll have standard cookout fare of grilled brats and hotdogs, fresh seasonal sides, and drinks all sourced from our local farmers and producers.

🫜 NeighborFest will be held in our Backyard behind the NeighborFood Market. We have picnic tables and kindly ask you to bring your own lawn chairs or picnic blankets.

⛺️Want to make a weekend of it? Our campground is now open! Check us out and book a spot at www.livelyacrescampground.com, we have spots for tents, campers, and two rustic cabins to rent!

BYO alcohol is permitted, please drink responsibly as this is a family-friendly event!

We love your dogs - but please leave them at home for this event!

📍 3805 West Empire Highway, Empire, MI

Questions? Email us at [email protected] or call us at 231.994.9339

🫜 Visit us!

🌱 Memorial Day Weekend Hours are:

Friday: 11 AM - 7 PM
Saturday: 9 AM - 7 PM
Sunday: 9 AM - 3 PM
Monday: CLOSED
Tuesday: 11 AM - 7 PM

(Human generated content and writing. Please excuse any spelling errors and feel free to let us know if you see something that needs fixing!)

Flush.That’s all. Come on over! Thank you Norconk and Maple Achers for growing one of the most beloved spring treats in ...
05/21/2026

Flush.

That’s all. Come on over! Thank you Norconk and Maple Achers for growing one of the most beloved spring treats in our community!

Address

3805 W Empire Highway
Empire, MI
49630

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 7pm
Tuesday 9am - 7pm
Wednesday 9am - 7pm
Thursday 9am - 7pm
Friday 9am - 7pm
Saturday 9am - 7pm
Sunday 9am - 3pm

Telephone

+12313607222

Website

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