THE WEEKEND FARMERS' market is a lovely idea, or ideal – an attractive mix of leisure, sophistication, health, pleasure, and sustenance – but the reality is that people need to eat every day, are often pressed for time, and on occasion reserve their weekends to relax in some fashion that does not involve an extra trip to a distant site crowded with people and vendors.

So instead of asking the people to visit farmers' markets, how about bringing farmers' markets to the people? It seems like an obvious step to take, yet no one seems to have taken it – at least until mid May, when Kaiser Permanente's big tertiary-care hospital in Oakland launched its Friday-morning (from about 9 a.m. to about 2 p.m.) farmers' market on a sidewalk next to its building.

"We have, on any given day, about 1,500 employees on-site and thousands of patient visits," says Preston Maring, M.D., a Kaiser physician and administrator who first thought of having a farmers' market at Kaiser and has played a central part in bringing it to pass. The hospital's high level of foot traffic, along with Kaiser's emphasis on nutrition as a central element of preventive health care, made the location an unusually appropriate one for a farmers' market.

As Bay Area farmers' markets go, Kaiser's is quite small – appealingly cozy to those of us who sometimes feel suffocated at the grander versions. At the moment there are just five vendors, with a sixth – a bread bakery – soon to join. The vendors deal exclusively in organic fresh fruits and vegetables; there are no prepared foods, nor any fish, meat, or poultry. The market works on the assumption that employees who do some produce shopping before work or on a mid-morning break won't have access to refrigeration; hence nothing highly perishable for sale.

The market isn't limited to hospital employees or visitors. Anyone can go – even neighbors with easy access to refrigerators. And apparently lots of people have been going; vendors have been telling Maring that the young farmers' market has been worth their while and then some. Meantime Kaiser facilities elsewhere – in San Francisco, Redwood City, and Santa Rosa, among other places – have taken note and are contemplating markets of their own. (Kaiser Oakland Medical Center, incidentally, has no financial interest in the farmers' market. It simply makes the space available. City permits and other such details were arranged through the Pacific Coast Farmers' Market Association.)

No, it isn't quite Webvan, and we don't yet have mobile farmers' markets. But if the Kaiser market – convenient, low-key, high quality – is a sign of things to come, then there is a reason to get up in the morning, at least if it's Friday.