Where to get deals on great produce in every borough

Sure, you know Whole Foods — and maybe H Mart and Patel Brothers — when you want kale, melons or okra. But what if you want fresh lychees or whole cloves by the pound?

Not only are the city’s independent specialty markets often just as well stocked, but they may also have better deals — and some of them are destinations in their own right, either because they’ve been neighborhood stalwarts for three generations, or because they're where you can get hard-to-find Muscadine grapes, lemongrass and breadfruit.

In the fall, look out for deals — influenced by factors including weather and fuel prices — on pomegranates, apples, persimmons, pears, oranges, kabocha squash and pumpkins.

Below is a quick borough-by-borough guide of independent vendors and smaller chains that locals swear by, and are destinations in their own right.

The Bronx

Most of New York's produce starts its trek in the Bronx. The 233-year-old Hunts Point Produce Market receives millions of pounds of fruits and vegetables and shuttles them into the hands of about 30 on-site merchants who also sell to individual shoppers — but at wholesale amounts and prices. So if you’re hosting a pop-up or a large-scale dinner party, head there.

There are also other options nearby, like Lucero and Reyes. These wholesalers specialize in Mexican produce, and you’ll find yourself surrounded by 10-foot-high walls of crates filled with fat pineapples, verdant nopales, large avocados and plump tomatillos. Ask for manager Gastón Lucero for help navigating the chilled Lucero warehouse since there are no signs or aisles like you’d find in a retail grocery store.

The Little Yemen neighborhood of Morris Park in the northeast Bronx has a few markets that cater to the community. Dar Al Hajar Markets carries various wheat flours, nuts, and spices like cardamom seeds, whole cloves and fenugreek that you can scoop into a baggie and pay by the pound. It also sells chunks of honeycomb and fresh yellow dates. Roots and Fruits Town Market has a larger produce offering that includes plantains, tubers, and cilantro for Latino locals.

Brooklyn

In Little Caribbean in Flatbush, Labay Market is the rare Brooklyn spot that carries fresh staples like breadfruit, soursop, callaloo and cassava, along with spices like nutmeg and pimento peppers — all because owner Macdonald Romain is able to source them from his own 60-acre farm in Grenada. Labay also sells cooking equipment, too, so you’ll find everything you need to cook Caribbean food. Head there on weekends to catch dishes prepared by Mac’s sister, Margaret.

Manhattan

Street produce vendors have long been part of the Chinatown landscape, and Muoi Truong, who runs an extensive fruit stand on the corner of Canal and Mott streets, stocks a treasure trove of East Asian fruits. Since 1997, she’s worked seven days per week, rain or shine, setting up at 6 a.m. and packing up by 9 p.m. “The winter is the hardest,” she says. Her competitive edge is pricing — for example, she sells a box of strawberries for $2. It explains how she’s fed generations of Chinatown families.

But despite fulfilling her immigrant dream of sending her kids to Ivy League universities, she has no plans to retire. “This is who I am," she said.

Truong, who previously owned a general store in Vietnam, Truong sells fruits like pears, apples and grapes this fall, but is also offering sugar apples, which look like fist-sized acorns and are smaller and sweeter than their soursop cousins); Muscadine grapes, a bigger version of the Concord variety; Taiwanese guava; and so much more spread among nearly 20 feet of table space.

Stile’s Farmers Market is a third-generation produce shop dating back to 1933, when New York was covered with “cobblestones and horse and wagons,” says owner Steven Stile. He was born into the business — “it’s in my blood” — and he knows it inside and out.

His pricing is competitive, particularly for Midtown: green and red cabbage for $0.99 per pound; a bunch of watercress for $1; and seasonal squash like kabocha, butternut and spaghetti for $1.99 per pound. It’s what keeps his customers — many decades-long regulars — coming back.

Queens

Workers trundle bins of produce out onto the sidewalk all along both sides of Apna Bazar Farmers Market on the corner of 37th Avenue and 73rd Street in Jackson Heights. The bins brim with South Asian groceries — bright amaranth greens, organic ginger at only $1.79 per pound, bitter melon, water spinach and pumpkin leaves — that get picked up by customers almost as quickly as the workers put them down. There’s always a deal here, even on the more mainstream produce like onions and potatoes.

In Astoria, United Brothers Fruit Markets has been a neighborhood staple since 1971. It’s open 24 hours with deals that fluctuate day by day. It has an “Apple House” section – a whole storefront dedicated to apples – priced at only $1.49 per pound. The market also prepares hot apple infusions with other fruits during the fall and winter.

Staten Island

Michael Schroeder, a lifelong grocer born in Brooklyn, opened Big Time Produce in 2008, in a corner space next to an Italian butcher on the commercial corridor of Forest Avenue.

This fall, he recommends oranges from Florida and California; Italian stuffing peppers; and Bartlett and Bosc pears that range from $0.99 to $1.49 per pound. He says about half of his customers are Mexican, given recent demographic shifts, and to feed his local community, he carries 12 types of peppers like jalapeño, cambray (spring onion with large, round white bulb), and chilacoyote squash.