Richmond Night Market: Dates, Cash, Food And Getting There

The Richmond Night Market is closed. Its 26th and final season ran from April 24 to September 20, 2026, at 2431 No. 3 Road, one block from Bridgeport Station on the Canada Line, and the site went dark for good after the September 20 finale because the lease came to an end. CBC News reported the closure on August 5, 2026, and Richmond News marked the last night plainly: the market closed forever on September 20. The City of Richmond has said it hopes the event continues at a new location, but nothing is confirmed, so treat any 2027 date or price you see online as speculation rather than fact.

That leaves two questions for anyone planning an evening of Asian street food around Vancouver. What was this market, why did it matter so much, and what actually replaces it now? The honest answer to the second half is that no single event replicates 26 years of grilled squid and stinky tofu under festival lights, but the pieces survive elsewhere: the Shipyards Night Market across the inlet in North Vancouver (free entry, Fridays, through its 2026 season), the year-round Richmond Public Market at 8260 Westminster Highway, and a strong set of guided options, including the 3-Hour Asian Eats Adventure that moves through several Asian restaurants in one evening, which this page covers in full below. If all this has you wondering whether the city earns its food reputation more broadly, our breakdown of Vancouver's credentials as a food city weighs the Michelin stars, Asian food depth and seafood culture behind the answer.

Is The Richmond Night Market Still Open?

No. The Richmond Night Market closed permanently at its current site when the 2026 season ended on September 20, 2026, after 26 years at 2431 No. 3 Road. The operator's lease expired, and while the City of Richmond hopes the market reappears at a new location, none has been confirmed, so no 2027 dates, hours or prices exist to plan around.

The market was founded in 2000 and grew into one of the largest night markets in North America, a Friday-to-Sunday ritual that pulled crowds from downtown Vancouver over the Canada Line in roughly 20 to 25 minutes. Its size was the point: dozens of vendors, live entertainment stages, and a maze of food stalls that rewarded arriving hungry. The final season followed the familiar shape, April 24 through September 20, before the announcement in August made clear that the run was ending at that address.

It is worth being direct about what that means for trip planning. Any source that prints a 2027 opening date, a current admission price, or current hours for "the Richmond Night Market" is describing something that does not exist yet. The market's own website still carried the 2026 season details after the finale, which is partly why outdated listings linger. For a broader look at what the city of Richmond still offers food lovers, the Richmond BC Food Tour Guide covers the year-round side of the suburb, and the Steveston Village Food Guide covers its fishing-wharf half.

What Were The 2026 Dates, Hours And Prices?

The 2026 season ran April 24 to September 20, with gates open Friday and Saturday nights from 7 p.m. to midnight, regular Sundays from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., and statutory holiday schedules mirroring the weekend pattern. General admission was $7, a Zoom Pass was $40, and children under 7 and seniors 60 and over got in free.

Those numbers are now historical, but they are worth recording accurately because so many pages still print them as current. The pricing structure was one of the market's friendlier features: a family could arrive on a Friday night, pay $7 per adult, and spend the evening grazing rather than committing to one restaurant. The Zoom Pass, at $40, bought expedited entry for repeat visitors across the season, which tells you something about how many locals treated the market as a weekly habit rather than a one-off attraction.

For anyone comparing evening plans now, here is how the final season's key facts looked, side by side with the Shipyards Night Market that still runs across the water:

The Shipyards market is the closest surviving analogue in spirit, and it costs nothing to enter, though its food vendor mix is smaller and its season is Friday-only. Its own 2027 dates have not been announced, so treat the 2026 pattern as a guide to its shape rather than a booking calendar. The North Vancouver Food And Brewery Tours Guide covers the Lower Lonsdale district the market sits in, including the Shipyards Local Eats Walk, a roughly 3-hour guided tour rated 4.9 across 89 reviews, from $113.73 per person with food and drinks included, which pairs naturally with a market evening.

If you were the kind of visitor who planned an entire Friday around the Richmond market, the honest replacement plan is a dinner-centred guided walk instead. The guided options in Vancouver proper start from about $54 per person for the short walks and climb from there depending on format, and unlike a night market they front-load a route, so you spend the evening eating rather than deciding.

Where Was The Richmond Night Market And How Did You Get There?

The market occupied 2431 No. 3 Road in Richmond, one block from Bridgeport Station on the Canada Line, roughly 20 to 25 minutes by SkyTrain from downtown Vancouver. Transit was the standard way in: the Canada Line runs from Waterfront Station through Bridgeport, and a one-zone adult cash fare was $3.50 after the July 2026 increase.

The transit link was a genuine part of the market's success. Visitors flew into YVR, rode the Canada Line one stop in the wrong direction from the airport, and were at the gates; locals treated the Sea Island corridor as a straight shot on a Friday night. The airport surcharge is worth knowing if you copy this route for other Richmond plans: journeys starting at YVR-Airport, Sea Island Centre or Templeton stations carry a $6.50 AddFare on top of the zone fare, per TransLink's fare page, so boarding one station along, at Templeton rather than the airport proper, did not dodge it. The market's own site confirmed Bridgeport as the access station, and the walk from the platform was a single block.

Driving, by contrast, was the market's known pain point: the lot filled early on Friday and Saturday nights, and overflow meant street parking in a light-industrial stretch of No. 3 Road. With the market gone, the transit arithmetic now favours the replacement plans instead. The Shipyards Night Market sits a short walk from the SeaBus terminal at Lonsdale Quay, which keeps the car-free evening intact, and downtown Vancouver's guided food walks start on foot from Gastown or Robson Street, which removes the getting-there question entirely.

What Food Was The Richmond Night Market Known For?

Grilled squid on a stick, stinky tofu, tornado potatoes, dragon's beard candy, and long queues for novelty items defined the food lineup, alongside a wide spread of Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese street snacks. Portions were snack-sized and priced for grazing, so a typical visit meant four or five small purchases across an evening rather than one meal.

The market's food reputation rested on volume and variety rather than refinement. A visitor could eat their way through a dozen regional traditions in a hundred metres, and the vendor turnover meant the lineup changed every season. Some stalls became institutions in their own right, with queues that stretched past neighbouring tents on peak Saturdays. It is that grazing rhythm, many small bites, many kitchens, one evening, that the best guided replacements recreate in restaurant form: the Premium Gastronomic Gastown Walk works the same territory at fine-dining level, while the 6 Local Tastings, 3 Hours walk, rated 4.8 across 489 reviews, from $114.89 per person, covers six stops in the classic snack-to-snack style.

The closest single match to the market's Asian-street-food core is the 3-Hour Asian Eats Adventure, which runs from Alberni Street downtown through several Asian restaurants in one evening. It is rated 4.9 across 44 reviews and starts from $152.15 per person with food included, and the listing shows free cancellation, so a plan built around it stays flexible.

Can You Still Get Night-Market-Style Food In Richmond?

Yes, but in daytime, sit-down form. Richmond Public Market at 8260 Westminster Highway is listed as open daily 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., with food-court stalls serving many of the same traditions, and Richmond's restaurant scene, from Fisherman's Terrace's made-to-order dim sum in Aberdeen Centre to boat-direct spot prawns in Steveston in season, carries the suburb's food weight year-round.

The Public Market is the most direct substitute for the grazing ritual: a roofed hall of independent stalls where you buy a snack, sit, and go back for the next one. It lacks the night-time spectacle and the entertainment stages, but the food logic translates almost one to one, and it opens at 9 in the morning, which suits a lunch stop between the Canada Line and Steveston. Aberdeen Centre, a mall on the Canada Line's Richmond branch, carries the mall-food-court tradition Richmond is known for; its Fisherman's Terrace Seafood Restaurant offered made-to-order dim sum through 2026.

Seasonality matters for the seafood half. BC spot prawn season opened May 14, 2026, and the Steveston Spot Prawn and Seafood Celebration ran May 14 to June 14 that year, with live prawns sold directly off boats at the Fisherman's Wharf Public Sales Float, a practice the harbour authority traces back to unofficial dockside sales in the 1970s. None of that is a night market, and none of it glows under strings of festival lights, but a June afternoon of dock-side prawns is not a downgrade, and the Best Seafood In Vancouver Guide maps the options.

Which Guided Tours Replace A Night Market Evening?

For the Asian food core, the 3-Hour Asian Eats Adventure (from $152.15 per person) and the Chef-Led Chinatown Walk (from $118.92 per person) are the two strongest substitutes; for the evening-out atmosphere, Gastown's evening and sweet-treat walks cover it; and for making the food yourself, Chinatown's dumpling and dim sum classes turn the night into a skill.

The chef-led Chinatown walk deserves its own paragraph because it does something the night market never attempted. Over roughly 4 hours, a working chef leads a combined culinary and cultural walk through a National Historic Site of Canada, designated July 19, 2011, with food and drinks included, from $118.92 per person, rated 4.9 across 686 reviews. That review pool is the largest of any Asian-food option on the site, which matters when you are choosing an evening sight-unseen. The shorter Dim Sum Lunch Heritage Walk, from $89.44 per person, about 2.5 hours with lunch included, covers the same neighbourhood for less time and money, and it is rated 4.8 across 6 reviews.

For the do-it-yourself route, the Dumpling Masterclass with a meal included runs about 3 hours in Chinatown from $107.32 per person, and the combined Chinatown Tour and Dumpling-Making Cooking Class, from $135.00 per person, adds the heritage walk to the folding-and-pleating session. These carry the night market's spirit of eating with your hands into a form you take home.

The evening-atmosphere gap is real, though, and Gastown answers it. The Evening Walk with Drinks Included covers roughly 3 hours in Gastown from $149.84 per person with food and drinks, and the Sweets Walk With VIP Access, rated 5.0 across 140 reviews, from $54.16 per person, is the budget-friendly dessert crawl. The Vancouver Evening Food Tour Guide lays out the full evening set. Gastown itself anchors the night: the steam clock at Cambie and Water Streets, built in 1977 to cover a steam grate, still chimes every 15 minutes with a longer version on the hour, a free piece of theatre no market replaced.

How Should You Plan A Richmond Food Day Now?

Ride the Canada Line to Richmond in the morning, eat at the Public Market or Aberdeen Centre around lunch, continue to Steveston for the waterfront and dock-fresh seafood when boats are selling, and return through downtown for a guided evening walk or a cooking class, one anchor booking per half of the day, so nothing depends on a market that no longer opens.

The structure works because Richmond's food assets are permanent while its night market was seasonal and is now gone. A morning Canada Line ride gets you there in about 20 to 25 minutes from downtown; the Public Market opens at 9 a.m.; Steveston rewards the afternoon with its wharf, its fishing fleet and its village core of seafood rooms. In season, roughly mid-May to mid-June, the Public Sales Float sells spot prawns and crab straight from the boats, the direct-sale tradition the harbour authority has documented back to the 1970s. Out of season, the village still earns the trip for lunch.

Then book one guided anchor for the evening half. Two practical notes for the budget: restaurant food in BC is PST-exempt and carries only the 5% GST, while liquor carries 10% PST on top of the GST, so a drinks-included tour is taxed differently from a food-only one; and BC's legal drinking age is 19, which is why brewery and some wine listings check ID. Tips go to the guide; the booking page for each tour states whether gratuity is included.

A sushi class is a strong anchor if your group would rather cook than walk: the Sushi Making Class With a Local Chef runs about 2 hours downtown from $60.82 per person, with drinks available to buy on site and free cancellation per the listing, and it pairs with a Richmond daytime plan without any overlap in food.

For the fuller comparison of guided options across the city, the Best Food Tours In Vancouver Guide ranks the leaders, and the What To Expect On A Vancouver Food Tour Guide covers pacing, group sizes and what a stop typically includes.

Common Questions About The Richmond Night Market