Organic, natural, sustainable and locally raised are the watchwords that no doubt drive many shoppers to the Mill City Farmers Market. The hot riverfront address might be a contributing factor, too. But there's another big reason to become a Saturday-morning regular at this two-year-old downtown Minneapolis hot spot. It's premium grazing territory.

Tall, cool and refreshing

It's all about color at Muddsuckers. When owner/barista Cevin Chladek isn't concentrating on java beverages (made with Minneapolis-roasted Peace Coffee, a nice touch), he's squeezing fresh citrus into a pair of Day-Glo thirst quenchers: crimson raspberry limeade and hot pink strawberry lemonade, and they're as thirst-quenchingly tasty as they look.

Farmers market royalty

Here's what's worth buying at the Queen of Tarts: everything. Kathy Hayes, the stand's reigning monarch, offers nearly a dozen sweet and savory single-serving tarts ($5, three for $13) every week, and it's not out of bounds to imagine nibbling your way through all of them. They're that good. Some are little seasonally inspired arias (a sweet-tart strawberry-rhubarb-oatmeal beauty), while others exemplify the kind of baking miracles (Vidalia onions with mellow Gruyère and little pops of fresh thyme on buttery puff pastry) that merit instantaneous inhalation.

Organic fast food

McDonald's could pick up a few pointers from the Donner family. A teasing whiff of smoke from a fancy Brinkmann grill acts as a calling card to Minnesota Valley Organics, where Larry and Jenelle Donner and their daughters Samantha, Jessica and Rebecca cook up a fast, delicious breakfast. Their McDonner Muffin ($5) is a locally raised riff on the Golden Arches' iconic Egg McMuffin, but this farmers market version features fried eggs and sizzling pork sausage from the family's Redwood County farm, topped with cheese and slipped into a pair of white or whole-wheat English muffins. Late-arriving shoppers will probably find themselves out of luck, but there's a superb consolation prize in the form of snappy, smoky brats, made by a butcher in Grove City, Minn., using the Donners' naturally raised pork.

Fourteen equals a dozen

My friend sniffed the air and smiled. "It's that State Fair scent," he said. "Don't you wish you could bottle it?" He was referring to the distinct Eau de Mini-Donut fragrance that can only come of sweet dough frying in a vat of scorching oil. The source: Carrie Summer, pastry chef at Spoonriver, a big smile across her face as she coaxed little rings of dough into a small fryer at her Urban Donut stand.

"Mini-donuts have always been my dream," she said with a laugh. "Seriously." But these piping-hot, bite-size glories are a world away from the fairgrounds' Tom Thumbs. Organic flour and sugar, a secret blend of Indian spices, a shot of black pepper, mild safflower oil and a toss into cardamom-blended sugar put a sophisticated and highly addictive spin on a beloved standard.

Each hefty wax paper bag -- her "urban dozen" counts out to 14 doughnuts -- goes for $5. "Oh, my gosh," said my friend, seemingly incapable of stopping as he popped one doughnut after another into his mouth. "This is just like popcorn at the movies, only better."

In-house chef

That other all-smiles person in chef's whites at Urban Donuts is Lisa Carlson, Summers' Spoonriver colleague, and she keeps the market interesting by preparing a different seasonally inspired dish every week. Who knows? It could be an absurdly fresh ceviche. Or it might be a bracingly refreshing tomato-watermelon gazpacho, each spoonful brimming with basil, cilantro, cool avocado and crispy croutons. Whatever Carlson has on her one-item menu, it's not to be missed.

Now that's a brownie

Grazers know to stop by the River Chocolate Co. and sample Allen Whitney's superb chocolate sauces, from a blood orange-cardamom blend to another that includes raspberries that Whitney grows on his farm near El Paso, Wis. They will surely be tempted by the 16 varieties of truffles and the deliriously over-the-top tortes. But truly wise browsers know to plunk down $3 and savor what might be the Twin Cities' best brownie, a moist, fudgy thing jammed with intense cocoa flavor and a tingly sea-salt finish. Actually, they buy two; one for the market, and one to savor later at home. If it makes it that far.

Old-fashioned sweets

Chocolates of a different kind are piled up on the chartreuse-and-purple-polka-dot tablecloth-covered stand at Groveland Confections, where Andrea Pesses tempts marketeers with gregarious, plus-size sweets ($2 to $6). Most of the handmade treats are based on classic candy bars: chocolate-dipped macaroon haystacks recall Mounds bars, cashews put a nutty spin on the Salted Nut Roll, and Pesses cranks up the maple flavor while putting her stamp on the Nut Goodie.

Here's the beef

Lunch, at least according to Mike and Brandon Braucher, the father-son team behind Sunshine Harvest Farm in Webster, Minn., adheres to the gospel according to grass-fed beef. It's a simple premise: Pasture-raised cows produce better-tasting beef. Find out for yourself with one of their two-fisted meals on a bun ($5), a tall pile of tender, thinly sliced, superbly flavored beef, stuffed naked (or drenched in a sweet barbecue sauce) into sturdy New French Bakery ciabatta.

The secret is butter

It's tough to pass by Edna's Caramels and not get Winkie Dinked. That's what owners Edna and Carolynn Kimmes call their dainty little samples of their chewy, absurdly buttery caramels ($3 to $25). Talk about advertising. One bite and you'll be reaching for your wallet. Just don't ask for the recipe. "That's proprietary," said Edna with a laugh.

Baking bonanza

Three baked-goods stands stand out. Amy Goetz hawks irresistible shortbread cookies -- based on her grandmother's recipe -- under the cozy Bramblewood Cottage name. Jenny Elliott, baker at On Fire! Ovens, confesses that she's been baking ever since she was big enough to pull her chair up to the table, and her experience shows. Taste for yourself in her chewy, two-bite cookies and the springy chocolate cakes and dense pound cakes she makes using the same organic duck eggs sold at Mystic Prairie Eco-Farm's adjacent market stand. And at Solomon Snacks and Bakery, Veronica Anczarski puts up golden, flaky tarts filled with tofu and cauliflower or tempeh and spinach.

Hot off the grill

"We have got to start coming here every Saturday," said the woman to my right to her friend, as they each tore into pulled pork sandwiches at Black Cat Natural Foods. No kidding. Spouses Karen Cross and Phil Ward assemble an ad-hoc restaurant every week, and shoppers definitely benefit from their hard work. The couple -- suppliers to a host of Twin Cities coffeehouses -- rely on their fellow vendors for inspiration, buying ingredients and quickly turning them around for hungry customers.

Two weeks ago it was grilled asparagus, brushed with olive oil and finished with a few pinches of sea salt, along with a basket of similarly grilled sugar snap peas, crunchy and sweet. That same morning, the busy stand's top sellers appeared to be plump and juicy chicken wings gleaming with a tangy ginger-soy glaze, outpaced only by those fantastic pork sandwiches, each a tall stack of tender meat that had been slow-smoked over hickory, doused in a spicy barbecue sauce and spooned with crunchy coleslaw into a fabulous bun from Rustica bakery in south Minneapolis. Wow.

See and be seen

The market has a rapidly percolating people-watching quotient. In recent weeks, bold-face-name shoppers have included Minnesota Orchestra music director Osmo Vänskä, Macy's North CEO Frank Guzzetta, politicos Sam and Sylvia Kaplan, philanthropists John and Sage Cowles, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, former Strib architecture critic Linda Mack and Guthrie Theater artistic director Joe Dowling.

More dining

If you're still hungry, you've come to the right neighborhood. Spoonriver (750 S. 2nd St., 612-46-2236) serves one of the city's best Saturday brunches (8 a.m. to 2 p.m.), with beautiful omelets stuffed with produce foraged from market farmers, buckwheat crèpes filled with smoked salmon and dilled crème fraîche, chicken and duck confit salads and a tasty lamb burger.

The Guthrie Theater's showstopping Cue (806 S. 2nd St., 612 225-6499) opens for lunch at 11:30 a.m.; take a seat on the patio overlooking the market. On matinee Saturdays, the theater's casual Level Five Cafe opens for lunch at 11 a.m. And the Mill City Museum Cafe (704 S. 2nd St., 612-341-7557) offers its counter-service salads-soups-sandwiches menu every Saturday starting at 10 a.m.

Beyond shopping

Make a morning of it and explore one of the city's most fascinating neighborhoods. The Guthrie's dramatic Endless Bridge (open at 8 a.m. daily), is an ideal freebie for newcomers catching their visual bearings. Catch another bird's-eye view by strolling up the spiraling path at gorgeous Gold Medal Park. Learn about the city's industrial past via the free self-guided tours at Mill Ruins Park or inside the intriguing Mill City Museum (704 S. 2nd. St., opens at 10 a.m., tickets $4 to $8).

Get acquainted with the Mississippi and St. Anthony Falls by walking or pedaling across the Stone Arch Bridge. Once on the river's east bank, turn left on Main Street SE. for an up-close-and-personal view of the falls at the swell new Water Power Park. And sidewalk supervisors, take note: Construction of architect James Dayton's energetic new MacPhail Center for Music (501 S. 2nd St.) is humming along nicely.

>ADDRESS BOOK

Mill City Farmers Market, 2nd St. and Chicago Av. S., Minneapolis, between the Guthrie Theater and the Mill City Museum. The market is open 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays through Oct. 20; a smaller market is held 4 to 8 p.m. on Thursdays through late fall. For more information, call 612-341-7580 or go to www. millcityfarmersmarket.org.

GETTING THERE

The market is three blocks north of the Hiawatha light rail line's Downtown East/Metrodome station (for more information, call 612-373-3333 or go to www.metrotransit.org). There is plenty of nearby street parking (at $1 per hour, bring a pocket full of quarters, or buy a prepaid parking meter card at Minneapolis City Hall; call 612-673-2886 for more information).

Or park in the Mill Quarter Municipal Parking Ramp (711 S. 2nd St., across 2nd Street from the Mill City Museum) or the Riverfront Municipal Parking Ramp (212 9th Av. S., across 2nd Street from the Guthrie Theater); both are $2 for first hour, $5 for two to 12 hours.

Traveling by bicycle? Find major paths on West River Road, 2nd Street and 11th, Park and Portland Avenues and the Stone Arch Bridge.

Rick Nelson • rdnelson@startribune.com