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Say it ain’t so, Bronx. After eight years of feeding, dancing and redefining what a neighborhood market can be, the Bronx Night Market is calling it a wrap. Organizers announced that this fall will mark the final season at Fordham Plaza, with a last hurrah scheduled for Saturday, October 25.
Launched in 2017 by Marco Shalma and MASC Hospitality Group, the market started as a scrappy local gathering and quickly ballooned into a full-blown movement. Over the years, more than 1 million visitors have flocked to Fordham Plaza to sample everything from jerk chicken to vegan empanadas, not to mention discover over 1,200 small businesses—many of them Black, Brown, immigrant or women-owned—that used the market as a launchpad.
It wasn’t just about food, either. The Bronx Night Market became a stage for DJs, dance crews and community performers, transforming once-quiet Saturdays into block-party-meets-street-fair energy. “We didn’t follow the playbook—we wrote a new one right here in the Bronx,” Shalma said. “What we built was never about trend. It was about legacy, love and a borough that always shows up.”
The farewell season has been framed as a kind of greatest-hits tour. Live performances from DJ Riddim, Son Con Tres and the Elite Motion Dance Group are set to soundtrack the final events, alongside the market’s signature vendor lineup. The last three installments are locked in for August 30, September 27, and the grand finale on October 25, all running from noon to 7 pm at 1 Fordham Plaza.
If you’re feeling déjà vu, you’re not wrong—the market actually announced plans to close back in 2023, only to pull off two unexpected encore seasons. But this time, organizers insist, the curtain call is real. Sponsorship hurdles and the challenges of staging such a large-scale monthly event finally tipped the scales. Still, hints of a future project are already swirling, with Shalma teasing a possible semi-permanent home for a new concept launching next spring.
So yes, it’s the end of an era, but not the end of the Bronx’s culinary swagger. Think of October 25 not as a funeral but as a farewell party: one last chance to raise a fork, dance in the plaza and say thanks to the market that taught New York how the Bronx does it better.