Mercado de Minillas

The Mercado de Minillas is today a thriving neighborhood market. It’s among several, including those at Rastro Popular, and the Mercado de Zapatos El Central, which emerged from the closing of the old stockyards. Fortunately, that dramatic closing in 1955 coincided with the height of Mexico City public market building between 1955 and 1965. The emphasis here is still on butcher-related products.

Thus, every Sunday here extends the market well out into the surrounding streets. Families arrive here from all over the City. Some will supply their own businesses. Others come just to eat. In some sense, the Sunday tianguis here bridges the enormous La Lagunilla/Tepito tianguis to the southwest, and that of the Santa Fe to the northeast. It’s an area so enormous, and so traditional, that one comes to understand it as the historical inheritance of the ancient Tlatelolco market.

The little mines of the Mercado de Minillas refers simply to the street outside. Still, the area owes much to the industrial heritage that began at the base of the Calzada de los Misterios immediately to the west. That too extended northeast to the border with Ecatepec. And that heritage is part of what people share during the big Sunday tianguis.

Sundays bring families together here for eating. And international visitors will find the same hospitality. It’s better food, and much fresher. You also get to support smaller family-owned businesses many of them plying their trade for generations.

The market keeps B2B hours. 4 a.m. to just 11:30 a.m.  Sundays that hardly matters as most people will stick around for big lunches nearly all afternoon. It’s a celebratory atmosphere.