According to Zach Brooks, general manager of Smorgasburg LA, there is no better way to enjoy the city of LA than through its food. Brooks has tested this worldview in other cities as well, such as New York, where he began his food writing career with the launch of a website called Midtown Lunch.

It was while running this venture that he met the founders of Smorgasburg New York, which started about 15 years ago.

“Originally, it was the Brooklyn Flea, before there were a lot of hipster flea markets,” Brooks explained. “They were one of the first in Fort Greene in Brooklyn, and it had a little bit of food. The food became so popular that when they got an opportunity to launch a second event, they decided to focus on food, and they called it Smorgasburg because the original one was in Williamsburg.”

Brooks decided to move to LS shortly after the New York location opened, and once Smorgasburg found its West Coast location at ROW DTLA, he was asked to lead the charge. This Father’s Day will be its 10th anniversary. It is open year-round every single Sunday, rain or shine, except the Sunday after Christmas and the Sunday after New Year’s.

LA is the second location, with Smorgasburg Miami launching three years ago and Smorgasburg Atlanta opening in October 2025.

ROW DTLA is connected to a 100-year-old wholesale produce market that is open to the public Monday through Saturday from midnight to 10 a.m. Brooks relayed that every restaurant in the city has bought produce from this market. Sundays it is closed, and this is when Smorgasburg pops up from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Smorgasburg LA also has offices that overlook the produce market. It was one of the first tenants 10 years ago at ROW DTLA, which is now home to many more businesses, such as Pizzeria Bianco, Kato and Hayato.

In Brooks’s opinion, the food culture has also changed in the past decade.

“When we first opened 10 years ago, ‘Instagrammable’ food was just becoming a thing, and I think Smorgasburg in New York was really known for that,” he shared. “When we first opened, we certainly had that as an element of Smorgasburg LA, but we had the front row seat for a shift.

“We quickly became more of an incubator for small businesses here in LA, where we focused a little bit less on fair food and a little bit more on amazing chefs and sous-chefs and home cooks who wanted to start small businesses that would eventually grow into catering companies or food trucks or restaurants. Now that’s something that you see across all Smorgasburgs. Obviously, Instagram is still important for food businesses. Getting someone to eat something once is not hard. Getting them to come back and eat it over and over again, that’s more of a challenge. For us, it’s not about just getting someone to come once a year and eat festival food. It’s about getting people to come back over and over again like they would to their favorite restaurant.”

Although there is turnover, if guests come two weeks in a row, they will most likely see the same vendors. Brooks tries to ensure that if someone sees something on social media, it will still be available if they do not make it to the market for a few weeks.

“We have new vendors joining and vendors leaving,” he said. “Most of our new vendors join at the beginning of the new year.”

The grand re-opening introduced 13 new vendors on Jan. 11.

Brooks not only loves his job — he enjoys that he gets to showcase the wide variety of food that the city has to offer.

“I started off as a food blogger, and I loved going out and eating at places and finding new places and then highlighting these businesses and hopefully pushing people to eat at places that I

loved,” he said. “Smorgasburg gives me that same opportunity. Smorgasburg is incredibly representative of all of LA. You walk around and every facet of the LA. food scene is represented, and I’m super proud of that. I feel like there’s no better place to go eat on a Sunday afternoon in LA than Smorgasburg.”

For more information, visit la.smorgasburg.com.