Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
One parking lot. Fourteen-plus cultures on plates. Zero cover charge.
That is what is happening tonight outside Leezakaya at 2710 S. Havana Street, right near Havana and Yale in Aurora. The Havana Street Night Market runs from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., and here is the part people miss: this is the last one of the year. Five markets, last Saturday of the month, May through September. May 30, June 27, July 25, August 29, and now September 26 closes it out. Miss tonight and you are waiting until 2026 warms back up.
So if you have been meaning to go all summer and kept finding a reason not to, this is it. Buckle up.
The whole thing is built around a passport theme, which is exactly as fun as it sounds. You move from vendor to vendor and the food goes from Korean BBQ to Mexican street tacos to African dishes without you moving your car. Admission is free. Prices vary by vendor, so bring cash and bring an appetite.
Here is the smart move, though. There is a program called Havana BITES, and it is basically the reason you go hungry instead of eating first. Select vendors do smaller, snackable, walk-around portions. So instead of committing to one giant plate and calling it a night, you graze. You hit five places instead of one. That is how you actually eat your way around the world in an Aurora parking lot without needing a nap by 8 p.m.
It is presented by Bonfire Event Co. and On Havana Street, and that second name is the one worth understanding, because it explains why this street can pull this off in the first place.
On Havana Street is a special district created back in 2007, run by executive director Chance Horiuchi. It stretches 4.3 miles down Havana, from Sixth Avenue on the north end to Dartmouth Avenue on the south. And the food brand, Eat On Havana Street, represents over 100 restaurants, global markets, and dining experiences along that run.
Most people do not realize this is not hype. Havana Street has been called the most diverse street in Colorado, and there is receipts on that. Westword ran a series called Eat Up Havana where they hit 47 restaurants representing 14 different cultures along the four-mile stretch. Fourteen. On one street.
And this is the part I really want you to sit with. This corridor is a longtime home for minority-owned, immigrant, and refugee food businesses. These are real people who came here and built something on this street. Roughly 95 percent of the retail space is occupied, which in this economy is honestly wild. A lot of commercial corridors around the metro would kill for that number right now.
The money backs it up too. In 2020 the district generated
The night market is the event, but the street is the real story, and it does not disappear when the tents come down.
You have got Dae Gee at 1901 S. Havana, one of the Korean BBQ pioneers on the corridor. You have got Stampede at 2430 S. Havana, the reimagined country-western hall, which tells you everything about how this street mixes old Aurora with new Aurora and somehow makes it work. And it is not just food. The corridor runs a rotating public sculpture program called Art 2C on Havana Street, done in partnership with Aurora's Art in Public Places. So you eat, you walk, and you are looking at real art the whole time.
Hayley and I have done this drive more times than I can count, and the thing that gets me every time is how little of this the rest of the metro pays attention to. People will sit in traffic to Vail for a
Here is the thing I always come back to. A dining corridor with 100-plus restaurants, 95 percent occupancy, and
But tonight, forget all that. Tonight it is 6 to 10, it is free to walk in, and it is the last one until next year.
Go get the passport full. See you out there.