Qatar’s Growing Culture of The Night Markets

Qatar’s Growing Culture of The Night Markets

Whether you are driving from on place heading to another, or you are just cruising the streets of the city, passing by a night market is almost inevitable. 

The cruising culture is very prominent in Qatar and especially among students and the young adults demographic. Cruising entails driving around with no set location to reach, enjoying the mixture of the old and traditional architecture coming to life with modern material, lit with bright and animated lights found throughout the cityscape and in the skylines. 

Over the past years, many night markets have emerged and popped up in various prime locations all over Qatar such as Lusail, Katara, Pearl, Duhail Sports Club, Qatar Sports Club, and Wakra. And since the presence of expats exceeds the locals, that in itself has introduced many variations of cuisines from all over the world. Some of these cuisines have opened in a form of a restaurant, and some have opened as a pop up caravan or trailer and stalls on the sides of the roads, and those have turned into a cluster of pop ups, and in that order, the birth of night markets. Additionally, many of the already restaurants have opened pop up branches there, giving us a great and a quite large selection of Qatar’s best restaurants, and cafes all in one place. These markets have been designed to be very aesthetically pleasing, unique, and with many instagrammable spots all over. 

A major chunk of the demographic attracted to these night markets are the young adults, who prefer to do the most from the comfort of their own cars. That includes cruising, eating, watching movies, organizing picnics in the back of their cars, listen to the music of their choice, all while enjoying the brightly lit and colorful city streets, and the drive by the marina or corniche in the neat and wide streets, and around many fancy cars. 

And in lights of the current events of the global pandemic, more people from different age groups have been going to these night markets and making the best out the experience from the comfort of their cars with minimal interaction with people from the outside as it is less risky than going into a restaurant.