Suhoor Fest Shows Off the Bay’s Massive Variety of Halal Cuisines — Until 4 a.m.

For the Bay Area’s first Suhoor Fest in 2021, organizers gathered a few food trucks in a Newark mall parking lot late on a Saturday night. It was Ramadan, and the modest hope was to create a small social gathering for the local Muslim community, which had spent much of the past year isolated in pandemic lockdown.

Instead, El Halal Amigos chef-owner Hisham Abdelfattah recalls, tens of thousands of halal food lovers came out. “I kid you not, we had enough people to fill up Levi’s Stadium,” he says. “We overdid it.”

Since then, the annual overnight event, centered on the Ramadan tradition of suhoor (the pre-dawn meal eaten ahead of a day of fasting), has cemented its status as the Bay Area’s largest halal food festival. It has expanded to include dozens of food vendors and bazaar stalls, and even earned an affectionate nickname: “Muslim Coachella.”

And on Saturday, March 7, from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m., Suhoor Fest will return to its roots in the NewPark Mall parking lot after a couple of years at a different site in San José.

In the end, Suhoor Fest simply outgrew its old location, drawing such big crowds that parking became a huge challenge and the freeway was completely backed up with traffic. “NewPark is pretty central for people who live in Fremont and also Dublin, Pleasanton and also San José,” says Irfan Rydhan, founder of HalalFest, which organizes the event. “And obviously there’s much more space.”

This year’s festival will feature 25 food and beverage vendors in all, plus an additional 25 bazaar vendors selling clothing, art, perfume and more. The food lineup, in particular, is a showcase for the tremendous diversity of halal food in the Bay Area. First-time vendors will include a Texas-style barbecue truck, a pop-up that specializes in Hyderabadi biriyani, and another that sells Uyghur Chinese noodles and kebabs. Walk down one aisle and you’ll spy stands selling Dubai chocolate cups and Yemeni coffee. Around the corner, you might find yourself drawn in by the irresistible smell of Nigerian jollof rice.

In that way, Suhoor Fest shows off all the ways in which the Bay Area is “the ‘Mecca’ of where melting pot and diversity and culture come together,” says Abdelfattah, whose stand will be selling his San José restaurant’s signature nachos and street tacos.

Abdelfattah says he remembers how when he was growing up, the practice of eating halal was only ever viewed as a serious thing — sometimes too serious, in his opinion. “If you want to get people interested, you’ve got to see the beautiful side of it. There’s nothing wrong with making halal fun, and understanding religion through that lens,” he says. “Muslims can have fun too!”

For Sahlik Khan, who helps his mother, Zareen Khan, run her popular Pakistani restaurant Zareen’s, Suhoor Fest’s fun, vibrant, carnival-like atmosphere is a big part of why he loves the event. “And it isn’t just for Muslims,” he says. “I always bring my non-Muslim friends to hang out and socialize.” (Zareen’s, for its part, will be selling its pani puri and “Zinger” fried chicken sandwiches at this year’s festival.)

Which isn’t to say there isn’t a serious, spiritual side to Suhoor Fest. Every year, the event ends with a call for everyone to gather together in prayer right before dawn — a beautiful thing to see, Abdelfattah says. He also recognizes that this year’s festival is once again happening against a backdrop of tragedy in the greater Muslim world, including Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza and the recent U.S.-Israeli military strikes against Iran.

“There’s so much uncertainty right now, and it’s just sad the division that we’re all feeling in this country on the ground level,” Abdelfattah says. “What we want to do [at Suhoor Fest] is just bring people back together during this holy month.”

Suhoor Fest will take place on Saturday, March 7, from 11 p.m.–4 a.m., in the parking lot of the NewPark Mall in Newark (2086 Newpark Mall Rd.). Admission is free. For additional details, visit HalalFest’s Instagram page.