While under Spanish rule, the city officials set to formalize trading hours, control prices, and promote sanitation. The butcher stands were consolidated in a shaded area on the banks of the river; the site where the present day Cafe Du Monde resides. Around 1782 the Spanish erected the city's first market building on the corner of Chartres and Dumaine Streets and in 1784 the "Authorities of Justice and Administration" declared that all retailers in the city should conduct their business at this site.

In 1791 the market was relocated to Decatur Street between St. Ann and Dumaine, just downriver from Place de Arms (Jackson Square). Permanent buildings were erected at this site, making this date generally accepted as the birth of the market place. The French Creoles called it La Halle des Boucheries, meaning The Meat Market. Several of these early buildings were destroyed by a series of hurricanes over the following years. The 1791 building was destroyed by the 1812 hurricane and replaced in 1813 by an arcaded structure designed by Jacques Tanesse. It served as the meat market and has survived to the present.

Other market structures were built at various times between 1813 and 1872. A vegetable market building was constructed in phases from 1822 to 1830 and remains standing today. Around 1833, a group of buildings known as The Red Stores were erected on the grounds between the vegetable market and the levee. Several yeras later a bazaar type of market sprung up between the meat and vegetable markets. Until after the Civil War the Meat Market was the only place in the French Quarter where fresh meat could legally be sold. The city later erected a bazaar market building around 1872.

The old meat market building was to see major renovations in 1936 - 1938. Although the interior was modernized, the walls and supporting columns remain as they were erected in 1813. "In addition to rehabilitating the existing buildings the project included demolition of the remains of the Bazaar Market (seriously damaged by the 1915 hurricane) and the erection of a new Fruit and Vegetable Market on its site; demolition of the remaining Red Store buildings; and construction of a wholesale fish market shed along the levee near the Meat Market. The project also succeeded in consolidating the area's wholesale fruit and vegetable business into a centralized facility. This was accomplished by the demolition of existing buildings on the river side of Gallatin St. (now French Market Place) and the construction of the steel sheds known as the Farmers' Market."

The next major renovation work took place between 1973 and 1975. "The project accomplished extensive renovation of the existing structures along with the demolition of the wholesale fish market and the construction of two new buildings--the Halles des Cuisines and a new Red Stores complex."