Night Market returns to downtown Rochester with expanded schedule

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – The Night Market is returning for 2022 with more dates and two locations starting in July.

According to the announcement, markets will be held every other Saturday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. at 307 E Center St, Rochester (the parking lot across the river from Mayo Field and across the street from the Civic Theatre). Up to 14 vendors will be at each event, on a rotating basis.

The final night will be on September 10, 2022, which will be held outside at Mayo Civic Center. September 10, 2022 is also the Mid Autumn Festival, one of the largest holidays in Chinese and East Asian cultures.

The dates of the Night Market are as follows:

July 2, 2022
July 16, 2022
July 30, 2022
August 13, 2022
August 27, 2022
September 10, 2022

The expanded schedule brings the market more in alignment with the original vision of Night Market founder Tiffany Alexandria of CHOOCHOO-ca-CHEW.

“I want The Night Market to be an incubator. My goal is to cultivate vendors. Switching to smaller, more frequent events allows the vendors to be more successful. It also makes this more sustainable,” Alexandria says.

It’s a model that more closely resembles the night markets of Asia, where, every evening around sunset, venders coalesce around temples and popular city spots for unofficial, unorganized events called night markets, or, 夜市 (Yèshì).

Night markets feature street food, clothing vendors, daily necessities, occasional live entertainment and street food.

Olmsted County requires street food vendors to have a specific permit in order to sell food. These permits come at a significant effort and expense for first time vendors, but allow them to sell at up to 10 events. Expanding the schedule allows vendors to take better advantage of their permits.

“We had three really successful events last year, but a lot of the first time vendors never found another venue to sell at after,” explains Alexandria. “The events are really for the vendors, and I want them to be able to do well. I feel like this is the chance, now’s the time to help these startup businesses somehow help them start.”