This research focused on the Public Market of Porto Alegre and, in seeking to find out the organizational culture of this locus, it identified the peculiarities inherent to historical, mythical and religious factors related to the citizens way of being. These factors reveal themselves on the market stores administration, portraying significances that bond the sacred and the profane, the public and the private, the traditional and the new, the trade and the affectivity. Through the ethnographic method, with the fieldwork from August, 2000 to January, 2001, it was found that the market represents the figure of a "grandfather", that cuddles his grandchildren, tells them stories and is permissive as regards to certain games, although, as much familiar to changes as he might be, he has habits acquired along a lifetime that need to be respected. The customized service, which could be impersonal, confers a significance of home upon the place. The signification "mall of the poor" reflects the ambiguity of a space whose hygiene is made by the Estate, but still exhales the strong smells of the popular delicatessen items. The representation that identifies the Market as a refuge, recalls a time that runs slowly, the time of the old grocery stores, when the wholesale and the package closed by strings were a part of the day.