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Ten years ago, John Wang was unemployed and looking for a new outlet. Following a four-year stint working at a law firm, he quit in search of something more fulfilling. Dabbling in projects from developing an app to consulting in the restaurant sphere, he was two weeks away from moving to New Orleans when woke up with a dream: to start New York’s first night market.
While the return of night markets has now become a clear marker of summer in New York City, 10 years ago it was nonexistent in North America according to Wang, save for a once-a-year market in Los Angeles and a weekend market in Vancouver. With memories of visiting the night markets of Taiwan as a child, as an adult, Wang’s primary bucket list item was to visit a region's nightly gatherings, exploring markets in Hong Kong, Morocco and Vietnam. The convivial spirit of it all and the incredibly low price point attached (Wang’s favorite bite was a $1 ceviche from Peru) was something that a recently unemployed Wang could get behind.
“I was curious whether I could bring those two things together: a market where it feels like a representative cross-section of the city…and one that’s affordable,” he tells Time Out New York.
And so Wang made a pact with himself to create New York’s first-ever night market, giving himself a year to fail or succeed. As he tackled questions of funding, zoning and logistics as a one-man team with no event experience, one answer he knew right away was picking the location. For this, he bet it all on Queens.
“That year that we launched, Queens was dubbed ‘The World’s Borough’ and the most diverse area in the world,” says Wang. “The idea [for the market] was to curate as many stories and traditions as possible, and Queens just made sense.”
But for an area that is known as one of the most diverse places in the U.S, Wang’s first task was a big one: How can you create a night market that is tailored to New York City and designed to bring as many folks as possible from all walks of life? The answer, he found, was in its diversity. As it stands, Queens Night Market has curated foods, dishes and bites from over 95 countries across the world and counting. And that was by design. From the beginning, Wang asked potential vendors to propose a dish on their application with a caveat. Eschewing the idea of picking something familiar to American palates or one that would solely bring them money, Wang requested vendors put forth a dish that was traditional to them, whether it was a staple of their Sunday dinner growing up or dishes reserved for cultural events. In his request, he’s since received proposals for curried crab dumplings and shark sandwiches from Trinidad, bowls of ice jelly most often enjoyed in the Sichuan province of China during the summer and steamed fish amok from Cambodia, a dish that dates back to the Khmer Empire.
“The whole point of being a night market is perpetuating stories and prolonging stories,” says Wang. “The ideal would be that everyone who comes to the night market has something ultimately familiar, no matter where in the world they come from.”
In its first year, the night market took over just the parking lot of the New York Hall of Science in Flushing Meadow Corona Park. Today, Queens Night Market sprawls 400,000 square feet of the building’s back lawn, welcoming 20,000 people every Saturday from the beginning of spring to the start of fall, save for weather disruptions. Over its 10-year period, the market has seen up to 3 million visitors wander its various stalls.
Another impossible feat? Keeping prices low, especially in times of economic hardship. Despite the 30% inflation that has occurred since the market’s price cap was set in 2017, prices at each stall range from $5 to $6. This has been in part thanks to Citizens Bank, a sponsor of the night market that has helped to offset fees for vendors. This year, Wang put the call out to companies, foundations and philanthropists to support the effort of the market, hoping to reduce or completely waive vendor fees. While he fell short of securing another sponsor this year, his community of vendors stood up, with 80% of participating vendors voting to keep the prices low for another year.
Even now, Wang is still surprised his year-long gamble turned into a 10-year streak. From the first few years that burned through his entire life savings, Wang finally started to break even in year three. As of two years ago, he now has a staff (previously Wang relied on the work of volunteers).
“I didn't expect it to launch in the first place. So few things last more than a year in New York City. I had no reason to believe that this was an exception. So it’s sort of surprising that one exists ten years later, but also that we continue to grow and hit some of these benchmarks and milestones.”
Over the years, the market has received stellar accolades including no. 9 “Best Restaurant in NYC” by The New York Times in 2023 (ranked #23 in 2024), one of the top 10 markets in the world by Lonely Planet (2024) and no. 1 Best City Food Festival by USA Today (2024 and most recently in 2025). In 2020, Wang and writer Storm Garner published the cookbook, “The World Eats Here” featuring the recipes and stories of immigrant vendors who held space at the market over the years. The book received a spot on Esquire's list of “The 23 Best Cookbooks (and Cocktail Books) of 2020.” Additionally, the market has served as a platform for a number of immigrant-owned eateries, helping to launch over 450 eateries in its tenure. The market has also donated a third of its proceeds to the United Nations Refugee Agency for World Refugee Day in recent seasons.
The market hasn’t been without its controversy, however. In 2023, the market came under fire for removing a sign from Palestinian vendor Baba’s Olives. It read, “Your tax dollars are funding the genocide of Palestinians, end the occupation, free Palestine.” According to Wang, he had received complaints that visitors were feeling unsafe.
“Our vendor signage policies have remained the same since we launched in 2015,” he says. “They were, and still are, designed to ensure safety above all else, and secondarily to ensure a welcoming-for-all vibe. When vendors break the policies that they contractually agreed to, we take it very seriously—even more so when we get complaints from visitors that they're feeling unsafe.”
The restaurant did not return and staged a boycott outside of the market last year. In 2024, the market did not feature any Palestinian vendors, and as of this year, according to Wang, the market did not receive any applications from Palestinian vendors. However, Wang is open to receiving future applications.
“As far as I know, we were one of the only weekly, large-scale food events, if not the only, to feature a Palestinian vendor in the first place,” said Wang.
Looking forward to the next 10 years, Wang is realistic about his bandwidth. While he wishes that the night market would eventually find its place in this city's infrastructure like others around the world, as the market functions now, he would be more than willing to let someone else take the reins.
“For someone who didn't think it would last more than a year to being in it for 10 years, I would like to find a way for it to run itself,” he says. “The idea that I let my savings account dry for several years, didn’t get to take a day off for five years and had no staff for eight years—it’s a lot of sacrifice.”
And yet, despite its ups and downs, Wang is eternally grateful that Queens Night Market has become a favorite to New Yorkers of all walks of life, something he is reminded of on the weekly.
“At least once or twice a week, someone emails and says, ‘My favorite part about New York City is the Queen Night Market, period.’ There’s a lot to love about New York City, there's so many institutions and cool things about it, so the idea that the market would somehow represent anyone's favorite thing about New York City is bonkers to me,” he said.