Pasco Flea Market

The price keep going up and there parking gets very hectic but other the. That its a greag place to go to take kids and ypurself and find useful cheap stuff

Attention this is not a traditional flee market where people sale old furniture, clothes tools ect. This is an Hispanic swapmeet. Latino CDs, Chinese nock offs, vegetables, mexican snacks like home made potato chips, roasted peanuts, fruit, corn ect and what is most surprising great Mexican food. Their are aisles of really good mexican mom and pop mini restaurants –but be aware it’s cash only! Go for the great food experience not for finding great antiques or bargains. People here don’t bargain.

We drove 80 miles to go to this flea market today. After our GPS got us lost looking for the place, we were thoroughly disappointed. I’m not sure it could have possibly been in a worse part of town. My husband checked the alarm on his truck twice before walking away.
Walking in, we didn’t have to pay, but there was a sign saying it was 50 cents to enter… but no one taking money and the window was closed. Perhaps because it was only about 2 hrs before they closed for the day.
While there were, for sure, a lot of tables, about ²⁄₃ of them were empty when we walked through. Again, this could possibly be attributed to the fact that it was 2 PM. What remained were almost entirely bootleg or knockoff brand new merchandise and Spanish CDs. Who buys this junk, out of curiosity? Everything from bootleg DVDs, knockoff sneakers, fake leather everything, fake gold, slightly-​not-​Disney-​character toys, etc. I definitely agree with the previous reviewer who commented that this place is an FBI agent’s dream, and if they took an ICE agent with them, they’d definitely make a friend for life. Together they could haul truckloads of bootleg merchandise and busloads of illegal immigrants out of there!
Bottom line is this definitely wasn’t the type of flea market/​swap meet I drove 80 miles to attend. I was in the mood to be up to my elbows digging through vendors’ used garage-​sale-​like junk while haggling for treasures… not to wander through bootleg central.
What little we did purchase, the vendors were rude, hardly spoke English and were NOT willing to haggle at all, really. My kids found sweatshirts they wanted (Angry Birds… sigh…). They were $ 20 each… My older son wanted one (HE is the Angry Birds fan… my other child couldn’t care less other than his brother has one, ya know?) and I offered the vendor $ 30 for two, and she flat out said no. I said ok, and was going to get just one and she said she’d take $ 35 for two. Not exactly a ‘deal’ by any means (GOOD Angry Birds sweatshirts from most any department store in children’s sizes are like $ 17 – 20 each, after all)…they are synthetic and I’m sure they will shrink and pill like crazy when they get washed the first time, but $ 35 for 2 hours of entertainment for 4 people isn’t bad. haha!

It’s huge, pretty clean, and affordable to enter, but there isn’t much to shop for after the dvds/​cds and clothing. There are a couple standouts: the marshmallow gun guy and the fresh, homemade churros. Lots of food stalls as well. Go early and avoid the crowd/​occasional violence.

I don’t know we pulled up but we were afraid to go in. Lot’s of stuff we don’t need or don’t want. Made me feel a little out of place. As we were leaving we noticed a police officer headed that way.

My boyfriend and I went to opening weekend at the Pasco Flea Market. I really didn’t know what to expect… and I really didn’t expect having to pay to enter. It was only 0.75 cents… so it really wasn’t much… but I was still kind of shocked. Anyway, we paid up and entered… the very first thing I noticed was it smelled SO very good. They had all kinds of food cooking… made me super hungry. We opted to walk around for a while before we ate… let me tell you… that was pure torture. I wanted FOOD and I wanted it NOW! The boyfriend on the other hand… wanted to wait. So, I was being nice… and decided to let him win… This time! =)
Walking around we noticed a lot of boot leg stuff. They had hats, blue jeans, CD’s, DVD’s, cell phones, cell phone accessories, video game accessories, t-​shirts… this list could go on and on. My boyfriend bought some baseball caps… I got some Sentsy stuff… then after we walked pretty much the whole area… it was time for the food. First we passed a booth that cut up fruit and put some hot spicy stuff on it. I have NO idea what it’s called… so we’ll just call it DELISH!!! It was SO yummy I had a lot of trouble sharing it. I wanted it all to myself. After I we finished that… We stopped at a little booth that had Al Pastor tacos… they smelled SO good I had to get some. I ordered two along with some lemonade. We found a place at a table… poured some hot sauce that was on the table onto the tacos and dove in. OMG!!! Those were probably some of the best tacos I’ve ever eaten. Two was NOT enough… but I knew I wanted to save some room for some other goodies.
I remembered I saw some of these little crispy things after we walked in… I know I’m really not much help because I have NO clue what any of this stuff is called… but they were round and kind of looked like a star. So, I made sure to get a bad of those… they too were quite yummy. Oh, and don’t let me forget about the tamales. We stopped at a boot on the way out… there were closing, but they had some left… we wanted a dozen, but when she told me that they were $ 14 a dozen I said… WHAT!!! That’s a little high… but I wanted to try them anyway… and we had talked about getting them and having them for dinner… so I said… ok… how about a ½ dozen. Thinking… I could eat a ½ dozen by myself. Well… after I saw how BIG they were… a ½ dozen was plenty.
So, on the way out… we had out appetite satisfied… and dinner for the evening. As it started getting closer to dinner time… I was dying to try the tamales. We steamed them to heat them up… poured on a little hot sauce and took a bite of these HUGE tamales. MMMMM MMMMM GOOD is all I got to say.
Now I have to admit… one of the only reasons I want to go back to the Pasco Flea Market is for the food. If you’re not into the kind of things they sell… the food alone is worth the visit. I’ll be back as much as possible.

Really?
Im not ready to ordain myself as a «flea market» veteran, but Ive wasted several hundred dollars on shit purchased from many; From «Diego to the Bay,» as Tupac would lyrisize.
This place is a wet dream for the FBI’s «stealing-other-people’s-patented-and-copy-righted ideas» department. An agent fresh out of FBI school could nail like 15 medals on one visit. The investigation could actually happen without paying the cover charge. I can just see the headlines now; «ROOKIE FBI AGENT LOOKING THROUGH BINOCULARS FROM THE TOP OF MT RAINER SPOTS BOOTLEGGED HOLLYWOOD SHIT AT PASCO SWAP MEET.»
There isnt the slightest attempt to make these goods look like they might be second hand. Its almost contemptuous. I respect that. Especially since nearly everyone there could also be questioned about their immigration status. HOME OF THE BRAVE, LAND OF THE FREE! Fuck yeah.
Anyway, its really the variety of bullshit that I dont need that makes this place blow. Movies, DVDs, jewelry and Clothes. Thats all you got?
If you want credibility on the streets you need to peddle some ceramic Bart Simpsons and Velvet Elvis paintings! Shit! No chess sets made from fake ivory? Wool blankets for $ 5? Water pipes? Where’s the low grade leather bags and purses? Pitchmen trying to strong-​arm you into buying car wax?
Dont be dissin’ me with this played out ghetto you call a flee market. Ill holler when you get some real PLAYERS up in there, hommie. OUT!

[Check out the new/​cool/​funny photos I uploaded]
It’s the start of another season of the Pasco Swap Meet. Yes, this is quickly becoming one of my favorite things to check out in the Tri-​Cities. They are now open both Sat & Sun.
It’s a feast for the senses:
****SOUNDS****
I think it’s a battle. About every five feet you have a stand selling CDs for cheap, and all of these stands are blasting music. So, within a few a few steps your left ear can be hearing some banda & reggaeton, and your right ear can be listening to cumbia and Tejano. And all of this music is SUPER cheap! (I bought a salsa CD with 100 mp3’s on it for $ 5!).
And of course Spanish is spoken here. (I need to learn the language!)
****SMELL & TASTE****
One of my prime objectives on this morning was to get some food. There are tons of stands to choose from. There are atleast 4 papuserias here. I had to get one. It took a while, but it was well worth it. It was all made right in front of me. It was dang tasty & well worth the $ 3.50.
But I was still hungry. If you want some Al Pastor (pineapple-​seasoned meat on a rotisserie), you have alot of spots to choose from. I picked up uno taco al pastor for $ 1.25 — and it was damn tasty.
Finished my dining with two churros for $ 1.
I love the smell of fresh strawberries, and the aroma of the huge California strawberries were too much for me to ignore – I bought a basket.
****SIGHTS****
This place is always filled with beautiful people. It’s a great place to people watch. The blandness of the Tri-​Cities is spiced up with a visit here.
Oh, and take a look at my photos if only to see the booty mannequins!

ok ok ok
I spent too much time in the Tri-​City area.
I was slightly pleased, partly disappointed. my big city needs! and had soemthing to do that day.
Interesting old stuff. Nothing I woudl buy and I am often called queen of garage sales. People to pass away the time in a hot sandy desert. What more do you want?
The different food vendors provide a selection of Mexican food whicI appreciate.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Cumbia CDs going for only $ 2.50. Several CD vendors too. The highly-​listenable and inexpensive Cumbia is a good enough reason alone to come to the flea market.
My mother-​in-​law and other family brought us here this past Sunday morning, at my request. The Flea Market is now open on Saturdays too.
Not as many food vendors as I expected, but you will not leave on an empty tummy. The pupusas at the Salvadorean pupuseria are pretty good. You can get them with a variety of fillings, including chicharron and queso. They are huge too. Though I expected more of an explosion of flavor, I would rate their pupusas as better than the pupusas at Salvadorean Bakery in White Center.
Really like the one booth were you can get all sorts of seasoned pistachios. Churros and tacos everywhere too.
A lot of used crap (power tools, TVs, computer monitors) is available for sale here.
Only minuses: if you are over 6′ tall, plan on ducking under a lot of tarps. Also the parking is a little gnarly. My car was gifted with a scrape in the parking lot while I was there. Oh well, that thing is ready for the graveyard anyway.