A new Caribbean marketplace opens this weekend in Brooklyn's Flatbush with a slew of food vendors, local retailers and more than 20,000 square feet of community space. Flatbush Central Caribbean Marketplace, formerly the Flatbush Caton Market at 2123 Caton Avenue, opens officially on Friday, May 13, with a full slate of entertainment for the weekend. RECOMMENDED: The top 10 Open Streets in NYC to hit this spring and summer In 2000, the Flatbush Caton Market opened and had been a home to more than 30 Caribbean, West African, and Central American retailers that offered goods and services, including clothing, music, dry and prepared foods, personal care products, hair styling and barbering services, home goods, custom printing, electronics and more. But in 2017, they were relocated while the building was updated to Caton Flats? a new 14-story, mixed-use building with 255 affordable housing units and community space. It also includes the Mangrove accelerator, which has a state-of-the-art commercial test kitchen with content creation and demonstration capabilities, along with production and test facilities for natural body care and cosmetics, new media, and textile production, specifically targeting BIPOC entrepreneurs to aid them in growing their businesses. Photograph: Raimund Koch Photograph: Raimund Koch Inside the new market, you'll find 29 original vendors with a selection of home goods, handcrafted body care, apparel, accessories and more, as well as food vendors including Osei Blackett's Picky Eaters, a contemporary Indo-Afro eatery with Trinidadian cuisine; Petisco Brazuca by Ricardo Rosa, who specializes in Brazilian snacks such as coxinhas and empanadas; and Nadège Fleurimond's BunNan, which has plantain-based cuisine from the African and Caribbean diasporas. To celebrate its opening, there will be chef demos and food samplings, double-barrel rum tastings, cooking classes, children?s storytime, as well as steelpan performers and stilt walkers. The events kick off on Friday at 10:30am and will run through Saturday. You can see the full lineup of events here. For more information on the market, visit @flatbush_central on Instagram and flatbushcentral.com.
