You are reading

Queens Night Market to Return June 19

Queens Night Market 2018 (Instagram)

May 24, 2021 By Ryan Songalia

The culinary diversity of Queens will be on display when the Queens Night Market returns for its sixth season, beginning on June 19.

The weekly food festival, which was canceled last season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will be held each Saturday at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The market will open an hour earlier than previous years, from 4 p.m. to midnight each Saturday through October 30.

The number of attendees expected each week is likely to be down from previous years due to COVID-19 and state restrictions. In 2019, 15,000 people attended on an average Saturday.

The organizers are waiving the vendor participation fees to make up for the lower attendance—but will be charging a $5 entrance fee to offset their loss of revenue. The fee will be lifted once state capacity limits end.

At least 20 percent of the net entrance proceeds will go toward COVID-19 relief and recovery efforts as well as toward advancing racial equity, the organizers say.

“We’re unbelievably excited to welcome everyone back and hope our visitors don’t mind underwriting vendor fees until attendance restrictions are lifted. We just don’t want to hang our vendors out to dry financially after the tough year they’ve had,” said John Wang, founder of the Queens Night Market.

He adds that the pandemic has devastated the food vendor business, with an estimated 75 percent of the night market’s entrepreneurs having quit the business or put operations on halt.

Visitors will be required to wear masks for the time being, except while seated, eating or drinking.

Some of the food options that will be available are Filipino dishes like balut (fertilized duck egg) and dinuguan, Taiwanese popcorn chicken, Peruvian ceviche, Bengali fuss and Romanian chimney cakes.

Food prices will be capped at $5, though some limited exceptions will be sold at $6.

The affordable prices haven’t prevented the vendors from bringing in revenue in the past. Vendors averaged nearly $2,000 per night in sales in 2019, according to organizers.

In addition to food, the night market will also host art and merchandise vendors selling vintage apparel, gourmet dog treats, ceramics, local art and other items. There will be live performances including African dance troupes, capoeira, jazz bands and Chinese lion dances, among others.

“While we’re very mindful of the gravity and tragedy of what we’re coming out of as a city, state, and nation, we hope the Queens Night Market can represent a celebratory beacon of solidarity and really just a huge, collective sigh of relief,” Wang sand.

email the author: news@queenspost.com
No comments yet

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Repeat hate crime offender charged in anti-Muslim subway attack in Forest Hills: DA

A Southeast Queens man is being held without bail after he was criminally charged with assault in the first degree as a hate crime and other charges for allegedly punching and kicking a Muslim woman on an E train in Forest Hills during the early morning hours of Wednesday, June 18.

Naved Durrni, 34, of 106th Avenue in Jamaica, was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court on Thursday and additionally charged with aggravated harassment in the first and second degrees.

Hate Crimes Task Force investigating bomb threats against Mamdani: NYPD

The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force launched a probe into multiple death threats made against Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani after his district office at 24-08 32nd St. in Astoria received four expletive-filled phone voicemails, on various dates, making threatening anti-Muslim statements by an unknown individual, including a threat to blow up his car.

The calls were made from an untraceable number and labeled the mayoral candidate a “terrorist who is not welcome in New York or America” in a message phoned in on Wednesday morning.

Seven teens indicted for attempted murder in brutal Kissena Park gang attack on two girls: DA

A Queens grand jury indicted seven teenagers for attempted murder, gang assault, robbery, and other crimes for an attack on two girls inside Kissena Park in Flushing in early May.

The defendants, who are all 17 years old, were variously arraigned in Queens Supreme Court between June 4 and Wednesday in two separate 25-count indictments with two counts of attempted murder in the second degree. If convicted, they face up to 25 years in prison.

Queens Defenders founder charged with stealing nonprofit funds as second scandal unfolds

The founder of the Queens Defenders and her husband have lawyered up after they were indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the non-profit organization.

Former Queens Defenders executive director Lori Zeno, 64, surrendered Wednesday at the Brooklyn federal courthouse. Zeno was arraigned on an indictment charging her and Rashad Ruhani, 55, with wire fraud conspiracy, theft, money laundering conspiracy and other crimes.