Cristina's Produce

Cristina’s Produce is a family-owned open-air produce stand in the City Market, Kansas City’s River Market. Founder Ben Wisdom began selling at the City Market on weekends in 1993 and opened his own stand in 2000, naming it for his daughter Cristina. The stand carries more than 100 varieties of fresh fruit and vegetables daily, locally grown and globally sourced.

Description

Cristina’s Produce is a family-owned produce stand in Kansas City’s Historic City Market, in the River Market district. The City Market’s merchant listing describes it as “a family-owned produce stand … offering one of the largest selections of fresh fruits and vegetables in the area,” with “more than 100 varieties of fresh produce available daily” sourced from “both local farms and global growers.”¹ The business’s own site makes the same claim in its own words: “Arriving daily from farms around our country and across the world, you will find more than 100 different types of the finest produce.”²

The venue listing notes that fresh shipments arrive daily and that the selection rotates seasonally, naming apples, cabbage, tomatoes, mangos, papayas and tomatillos among the everyday stock, and asparagus, rhubarb, greens, onions and potatoes among the rotating seasonal crops.¹

Cristina’s sits among the City Market’s cluster of independent grocers; the venue’s own listing points visitors to Carollo’s Grocery, Crossland International Market and Global Produce as nearby stops.¹ Other City Market tenants in the Registry include the-candy-wizard, level-one-game-shop, kc-soda-co, dutch-flowers and africa-2000.

Ownership and history

Cristina’s Produce was founded by Ben Wisdom. Both the venue listing and the business’s own “Our Story” page give the same account, and the own-site version is the fuller one: “Ben Wisdom seed for the produce industry sprouted in 1993 when he began selling on the weekends at the City Market. From that, grew his dream of someday becoming a store owner. Reality came in 2000, after the birth of his daughter.”² The daughter is Cristina, for whom the stand is named — the venue listing states this explicitly: “which became a reality in 2000 after the birth of his daughter, Cristina—who inspired the name of the business.”¹

The own site describes a career spanning “harvesting directly from the fields to working on the docks loading and unloading … to displaying produce in a colorful way for customers,” and claims as his “claim to fame at the City Market … the fact he has been a vendor in each spot and worked in every stall.”² It also states he “has been on Fox 4 a number of times and featured on marketing and television spots” and names Edward Jones and Phillips 66 among companies he has worked with.² These are first-party self-descriptions and are recorded as such; no broadcast segment or campaign was located and dated on this pass. “

“ — Ben Wisdom’s origin and residence, and whether any second-generation family member (including Cristina herself) now works in or runs the business.

Products / What they sell

This is a fresh-produce stand, not a restaurant: menu_status: na. Produce is sold by weight and by the piece off open displays; there is no menu, and the analogous artifact is a product range. Everything below is taken from the venue listing or the stand’s own site. No item list is reconstructed and no prices are published beyond what a source states verbatim — nothing is estimated.

Everyday range:

• More than 100 different fruits and vegetables on display each day, with shipments arriving daily¹²
• Staples named by the venue listing: apples, cabbage, tomatoes, mangos, papayas, tomatillos¹

Seasonal and global:

• Rotating seasonal crops named by the venue listing: asparagus, rhubarb, greens, onions, potatoes¹
• A mix of local-farm and imported produce, including items the listing says “may not typically be available at traditional grocery stores”¹

Value:

• The venue listing states the stand is “known for its affordable pricing and bulk deals, including popular $1 produce baskets that offer great value for ripe fruits and vegetables.”¹ This $1 basket figure is the venue’s own published claim and is quoted rather than adopted as a current price; no price list was published by the business on 2026-08-13. “

Operating status

Active. Evidence of current operation on 2026-08-13:

• City Market merchant page — resolves (HTTP 200) and carries an embedded schema.org dateModified of 2026-03-26, i.e. the landlord was maintaining this merchant’s listing five months before the check.¹ The page also carries a full 2025-style rewritten “Business Overview / Our Story” body, indicating a deliberate refresh rather than a stale 2018 stub (datePublished on the page is 2018-11-29).¹
• The stand’s own site at cristinasproduceinc.com resolves and serves content (HTTP 200), publishing a current address, phone and hours.² Its footer carries no year, so it cannot itself date 2026 activity.

The venue’s March 2026 listing maintenance is the strongest dated signal available on this pass. “ — dated first-party 2026 content from the business itself would upgrade this from provisional to firm.

Disputes

Address — 413 Main St vs. 413/415 Main St. The City Market’s merchant listing gives “413 Main St, Kansas City, MO 64105.”¹ The stand’s own site gives “413/415 Main Street, Kansas City, MO, 64105.”² The two are compatible — a stand occupying two adjacent bays — and the own-site form is the more precise. Note that this is a different street address from the rest of the City Market complex, whose tenants publish 20 E 5th St or 400 Grand Blvd; 413 Main St is on the Main Street side of the market sheds. Both sources agree, so it is recorded as given, but the discrepancy with sibling City Market pages is flagged. “ — an independent confirmation before this address is geocoded.

Hours. The venue listing gives Sunday–Friday 7:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m. and Saturday 5:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.¹ The stand’s own site gives Sunday–Friday 7 a.m.–5:30 p.m. and Saturday 5 a.m.–5:30 p.m., and adds that it is open 365 days a year including holidays.² The opening times agree; only the closing time differs by thirty minutes. Neither is adopted as authoritative; both are recorded and the field is marked conflicting.

Sources

Links

• Website: https://www.cristinasproduceinc.com/
• City Market listing: https://thecitymarketkc.org/merchants/cristinas-produce/

Footnotes

1. The City Market — official merchant listing, “Cristina’s Produce | City Market | Kansas City” — asserts: Cristina’s Produce is a listed City Market merchant; “a family-owned produce stand located in Kansas City’s Historic City Market, offering one of the largest selections of fresh fruits and vegetables in the area”; more than 100 varieties of fresh produce daily; local and global sourcing; named staples apples, cabbage, tomatoes, mangos, papayas, tomatillos and seasonal asparagus, rhubarb, greens, onions, potatoes; “known for its affordable pricing and bulk deals, including popular $1 produce baskets”; founder story — “Cristina’s Produce was built from the ground up by Ben Wisdom, whose journey in the produce industry began in 1993 selling at the City Market on weekends … which became a reality in 2000 after the birth of his daughter, Cristina—who inspired the name of the business”; address 413 Main St, Kansas City, MO 64105; phone (816) 842-0290; hours Sunday–Friday 7:00 AM–6:00 PM, Saturday 5:00 AM–6:00 PM; map location 2B; nearby merchants listed as Carollo’s Grocery, Crossland International Market, Global Produce. Page source carries schema.org datePublished 2018-11-29 and dateModified 2026-03-26. Retrieved by direct HTTP request (HTTP 200) on 2026-08-13. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

2. Cristina’s Produce — official site, home page and “Our Story” page and cristinasproduceinc.com — asserts: “Located in the historic City Market in Kansas City Missouri. Arriving daily from farms around our country and across the world, you will find more than 100 different types of the finest produce.”; “Open 7 Days a Week: Sun-Fri: 7am-5:30pm | Sat 5am-5:30pm”; “413/415 Main Street, Kansas City, MO, 64105”; phone (816) 842-0290; and the founder narrative — “Ben Wisdom seed for the produce industry sprouted in 1993 when he began selling on the weekends at the City Market … Reality came in 2000, after the birth of his daughter.”; “He has two passions in life, fresh produce being one and the one closest to his heart, Cristina, his daughter.”; “Ben has been on Fox 4 a number of times and featured on marketing and television spots”; companies named “Edward Jones, Phillips 66 and New York companies”; “open 365 days per year, including holidays”. No copyright year is printed. Both pages confirmed serving HTTP 200 on 2026-08-13. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸