The Mercado Central is a sprawling indoor market that takes up an entire city block in the centro, with more than 400 small shops selling everything Minas Gerais produces — cheese, cachaça, doce de leite, herbs and dried beans, hammocks, religious figurines, and live birds and rabbits in cages. It opened in 1929 and is still locally owned: each shop a separate business, mostly multi-generational.
The food counters scattered through the market serve some of the best inexpensive meals in the city. The bar Casa Cheia is famous for its fígado acebolado (liver and onions). A bowl of feijão tropeiro at any of the lunch counters costs almost nothing. The market opens at 7am and is busiest from late morning through Saturday lunch.