- Plaza del Mercado de Río Piedras — Local services in San Juan

Excellent market to buy fresh and rare vegetables and fruits that sometimes you can't find elsewhere, like passion fruits, guayabas, quenepas, star fruits or rose apples. It has a barbershop, a food court with a variety of local food, and several stores dedicated to local medicines and remedies, lottery, accessories, and offices to government services. It is located at Paseo de Diego which consists of many stores throughout the street; the stores range from clothing, pharmacies, vegetable and fruit stands, restaurants and cafeterias, banks, dollar stores, mail office, bakery, party and office supllies, government service offices, public bus station that can take you up to practically any town of the island, and a train station (Rio Piedras). Both Plaza del Mercado and Paseo de Diego are one of the most cultural places in the island as you can actually see a glimpse of what life used to be like in PR, and the locals carry a lifestyle rather different from that of the city. Paseo de Diego used to have more stores, like electronics, gaming, jewelry and shoes, which used to be a very famous place for shopping due to the diversity of stores and the low prices of items, but ever since the megastores arrived, plus the decay of the economy, people stopped seeing it as they used to and more stores keep closing as...

I went to the plaza looking to buy souvenirs and also found a nice little shop that sold various juices as well. Unfortunately I didn't write down the names of either of those places, but there's only 1 souvenir shop there and the juice place is right next door to it.

The juice shop had very delicious options for fair prices.

The souvenir shop had a variety of gifts at good prices, we found a bunch of great items.

The plaza it self has clearly been around for a long time and it shows it's age. It hasn't been very well kept. There is a small food court and various stalls, overall as a tourist I don't think you'll find much of interest.

Parking was a bit of a hassle as I had to find a spot on the street. The neighborhood is a bit run down, but it seemed fairly safe during the day time.

My only concern was that we had a bunch things in the car because we came directly from the beach, still in bathing suits and it was obvious we were tourists, so I was a little concerned someone might break into our rental car. I didn't feel like my personal was an issue though.

Luckily all went well, we didnt...

This place is iconic, no other place besides the one in Santurce is the same. Visit it before it folds. There are unique stands there, from the food stalls to the guy that fixes watches, to the hardware store to the lottery ticket vendors, it is a unique atmosphere you will not feel in the big shopping malls. There is a pay parking underneath, very reasonably priced, and you may even go to the surrounding stores and street vendors. Rio Piedras was once an economic powerhouse but as many other shopping places in the towns, it has seen a decline. Yet, it still is Rio Piedras, a very important economic sector for the city of San Juan. Eventually I will start posting pictures of the different places I am visiting, hoping to showcase the best we have to offer to the visitors from other places, hopefully always the good, not so much the bad, and almost...