Brisbane City Markets (Cathedral Square)

Brisbane City Markets runs three separate sessions across the inner city, and the Cathedral Square one is the smallest and the most food led. It trades every Thursday from 8am to 2pm at 410 Ann Street, on the corner of Ann and Wharf, with a bigger focus on street eats than its sister markets and live music running through the middle of the day.

A lunch market with a produce spine

The square sits at the northern end of the CBD, ringed by office towers and across the road from St John's Cathedral, which gives the market a built-in weekday crowd. The stall mix leans towards prepared food you can carry to a bench, but it keeps the growers and makers that define the Brisbane City Markets brand across all three of its venues. Because the site is a landscaped square with lawn and mature trees rather than a plaza or a mall, the market can spread out and people actually sit down, which is not true of every city market. The 2pm close is the giveaway that this is pitched at the lunch hour rather than at a morning produce shop.

Of the operator's city markets, Reddacliff Place on Wednesday is the largest and longest running, and Queens Wharf shares the Thursday slot at the opposite end of George Street. Cathedral Square is the one to pick if you want somewhere to sit with what you have bought.

Getting there and getting the day right

Thursday only, 8am to 2pm. Ann Street is well served by buses and the square is a short walk from Central station, which is by far the easiest way in: parking in this part of the CBD is expensive and scarce on a weekday. Bring a card, since city market stalls almost universally take them, and bring an appetite rather than a shopping trolley. Shade is decent thanks to the mature trees, but a Brisbane summer lunch hour is still a Brisbane summer lunch hour. This is Turrbal and Jagera country.