The Richmond Summer Night Market is back this weekend until October 9th! If you’ve never been, I highly suggest you check it out at least once this year! The theme is dinosaurs meets Canada’s 150th (yea, strange I know). There are more games and activities for the kids to enjoy this year including a bouncy castle and bumper cars.
But as you probably know, the main reason why people go (at least, my main reason) is for the food. All your favourite stalls are back – grilled squid, BBQ skewers, rotato potatoes and bubble tea to name a few.
There are a couple new stalls including Phnom Penh (they’re serving up their famous chicken wings), Big G Fried Chicken (serving up their large chicken cutlets amongst other chicken items), SevenTwenty Sweets (bubble tea). There are also some other notable stalls including Tabatei Tacos and ChicKing Korean Fried Chicken.
Overall, it seems like there are more chicken and Korean stalls this year. There seems to be less dessert stalls, but maybe it’s just me. I’m surprised there are more larger, well known businesses getting into the Night Market, but I don’t blame them – it’s a great place to make cash, especially when you have a great following already. I’m curious to see if more and more brick and mortar stores will take part in the night market.
There are the staple stalls that are non-food related: the stationary, cute stuffed animals, phone cases and socks. I only really buy stationary and occasionally socks from the night market. Also, later in the summer I like buying fruits like lychee from a couple stalls.
The Night Market opens from Friday to Sunday at 7pm. Admission is $3.75, but free for kids under 10 and seniors over 60.
I would highly recommend getting a Zoom Pass if you’re with a couple friends or plan to come back to the night market this year. The lineups to get into the night market tend to be long and with the ZoomPass, you can skip the line and walk straight in.
The Night Market is easily accessible by CanadaLine, just get off at Bridgeport Station and walk towards the market (its about a 5-10 minute walk). You can also drive – parking is free but tends to fill up pretty quickly.
Lots of people always ask when is the best time to go to the Night Market – there really is no best time because it’s always busy. I’d suggest going early – right when they open, it’s not too bad then but as time goes on 8-10 is probably the busiest time. It’s also less busy when it’s raining or the weather isn’t that great, so it might be a good time to go if you’re willing.
For more information on the Richmond Night Market, check out their website here: http://richmondnightmarket.com/
