If you have ninety minutes and want to understand what Reading Terminal Market is, make three stops in this order.
Start at DiNic's — look for the roaster near the center of the market — and order the roast pork hoagie with broccoli rabe and sharp provolone. This sandwich defeated 60,000 competitors in a Food Network competition in 2012. The pork is slow-roasted, sliced thin, and stacked high; the broccoli rabe adds a slight bitterness that cuts through the fat in exactly the right way. Arrive before noon on weekdays, or by 11:30am on weekends, to avoid the longest lines.
Next, if it's Wednesday through Saturday, walk to the back-left corner near the 12th Street side and find Beiler's Bakery. The Amish-run pastry stand from Lancaster County sells doughnuts fried fresh and sticky buns sold by weight from sheet pans. This is not a tourist attraction — it's a wholesale baker that has served Philadelphia restaurants and households for decades.
Finish at Bassett's Ice Cream, near the 12th Street entrance. Bassett's has been making ice cream since 1861, the oldest ice cream company in the United States. The vanilla is the benchmark; if it tastes better than you expected from vanilla, you understand the point of Bassett's.
Reading Terminal Market's most underappreciated feature is the building you're standing in. The arching ironwork roof is the original 1893 Reading Railroad train shed — one of the largest single-span arched-roof structures in the world when built, attributed to the firm Wilson Brothers. It covered the elevated rail platforms that carried Philadelphia & Reading Railroad commuter and long-distance trains into Center City.
The market itself was a compromise. When the Reading Railroad acquired the block at 12th and Arch Street in 1890 to build its consolidated terminal, it found established merchants already operating a farmers' market on the site. Rather than displace them, the railroad built the market underneath the train shed and elevated tracks, raising construction costs by roughly $1 million. The market opened in 1892 and was fully occupied by 1893. Trains and vendors coexisted under the same roof for the next ninety years.
The trains stopped running in 1984, when Philadelphia's Center City Commuter Connection rerouted rail traffic through a new tunnel. The train shed had already been designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976 — while the trains were still running — in recognition of its engineering significance. In 1990, the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority purchased the market and undertook a major restoration, maintaining the cast-iron columns and ironwork ceiling while updating vendor infrastructure. The Convention Center was built against the market's east wall, which is why the main entrance today faces both 12th Street and Arch Street.
What you see now is not a renovation aesthetic. It is a train station, still intact.
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The northwest corner of Reading Terminal Market runs on a different calendar from the rest of the building. The Pennsylvania Dutch merchants — most of them Amish or Mennonite farming families from Lancaster County, about 70 miles west of Philadelphia — operate here only Wednesday through Saturday. On those days they arrive early; Sunday through Tuesday, their stalls are dark.
This makes the market feel meaningfully different depending on when you visit. Wednesday and Thursday mornings, before the lunch rush, are the best time to see the Amish section functioning: fresh Lancaster County produce, hand-made egg noodles, shoofly pie, fresh-churned butter, and whole dressed chickens alongside the baked goods.
Miller's Twist is the stand where you can watch soft pretzels being made in real time — an Amish baker rolling, shaping, and dipping pretzels into the alkaline solution that gives them their distinctive crust before baking. The result is chewy, not brittle, and should be eaten warm with the mustard available at the stand. A Miller's Twist pretzel is a bread product; it has nothing in common with the hard, mass-produced pretzels Philadelphia's street vendors sell.
Beiler's Bakery draws the market's longest weekend lines — fifteen people deep by 9am on Saturdays, for doughnuts and sticky buns priced significantly below what a Philadelphia bakery would charge for comparable quality.
Dutch Eating Place serves Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast at a counter in the same section: scrapple (a pork-and-cornmeal loaf, fried until crisp at the edges), fried eggs, and pancakes. Scrapple is a mid-Atlantic tradition with deep German immigrant roots. If you've never had it, this is the right place to try it.
Beyond the Amish section and DiNic's, the market has roughly 80 vendors organized loosely by category across its open floor. Several others are worth knowing before you go.
Iovine Brothers Produce occupies one of the largest footprints in the building and functions as a full produce department rather than a specialty stand. The prices run below Philadelphia grocery store rates, and the turnover is high enough that the produce is reliably fresh. This is where Center City households actually shop for vegetables.
Kamal's Middle Eastern Specialties sells falafel, fresh hummus, and fattoush from a compact stall near the Arch Street entrance. The hummus is made in-house and sold by the container. This is the kind of vendor that keeps a public market honest: modest prices, practical food, regulars who come every week.
Fox & Son Fancy Corn Dogs represents the market's newer generation of vendors. The corn dogs use house-made batter with specialty fillings — jalapeño cheddar, andouille sausage, rotating seasonal options. It sits alongside vendors that have been operating for 50-plus years, which is the mix that makes the market feel alive rather than curated.
For sweets beyond ice cream and Amish pastries, the market has multiple candy and chocolate vendors in the center aisles, and a rotating set of prepared-food stalls near the Filbert Street end of the building. Check the market's merchant directory at readingterminalmarket.org before you go — the vendor list shifts year to year, and this post was verified in October 2026.
The market is most crowded on Friday and Saturday between noon and 2pm, when office lunch crowds and Convention Center event traffic fill the floor at the same time. The wait at DiNic's during that window can run 25 minutes.
For the best combination of Amish vendors present and manageable crowds, Wednesday or Thursday morning from 9 to 11am is the right call. You can actually look at stalls rather than navigate around other visitors, and the vendors have had time to set up fully before the crowd arrives.
Sunday is a reasonable alternative: about two-thirds of vendors open, hours are 9am-5pm, and the pace is steady without being oppressive. The key limitation is the Amish section — no Amish merchants on Sundays.
Saturday mornings are worthwhile but move quickly past comfortable before noon. If you're coming on Saturday specifically for Beiler's or Miller's Twist, arrive before 10am.
Reading Terminal Market is at 51 N. 12th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107 — one block north of Market Street in Center City, between Arch Street and Market Street. The main entrance faces 12th Street; the Arch Street entrance puts you in the Amish section.
By SEPTA subway: Take the Market-Frankford Line (Blue Line) to 13th Street Station, which exits onto Market Street one block from the market. SEPTA Regional Rail's Jefferson Station is directly adjacent to the market — the Convention Center and the market share the same block. If you're coming from a suburban SEPTA station, Jefferson Station is your stop.
By foot: The market is a 10-minute walk from City Hall at Broad and Market, and about 15 minutes from the eastern edge of Rittenhouse Square. Most Center City hotels are within a 5-to-10-minute walk.
By car: Parking garages operate on both Arch Street and Filbert Street within one block. Street parking is scarce. If you're driving from outside the city, taking SEPTA from a regional rail station to Jefferson Station is faster and cheaper than parking.
Hours: Monday-Saturday 8am-6pm, Sunday 9am-5pm. No admission fee.
Is it free to enter? Yes. No admission fee. You pay only for what you buy.
Cash or card? Both, but plan ahead. Most vendors accept credit cards. Some of the Amish stalls — including Beiler's and Miller's Twist — are cash-only. ATMs are available inside the market. Bringing $20-30 in cash is worth it if you plan to visit the Amish section.
How much does a meal cost? DiNic's roast pork hoagie runs roughly $12-14. Bassett's ice cream is around $5-6 per scoop. Amish baked goods and Iovine Brothers produce are priced below supermarket rates. A focused lunch here runs $12-18; a full graze across several vendors can reach $35-40.
Is it good for kids? Yes. The open floor plan handles strollers well. The variety means groups with different preferences — including picky eaters — usually find something. Fox & Son corn dogs are popular with children, and Bassett's ice cream covers the dessert question.
What's nearby? Chinatown is a 5-minute walk north on 11th Street. Old City — Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and Elfreth's Alley — is about a 15-minute walk east. If you want to keep eating your way through Philadelphia's neighborhoods, Fishtown is worth the 20-minute subway ride for a completely different side of the city's food scene.
