Mercado 23
Mercado 23 is an indoor street market in Cancún, Mexico, selling fresh produce, meat, spices, household goods, and handcrafted items. It sits outside the hotel zone, in a part of the city where residents do their daily shopping.
The market opened in 1978, when Cancún was still a very young city, and was built to serve the growing residential population rather than visitors. It has kept its character as a neighborhood market since then, without shifting toward tourism.
The market is a good place to try traditional Mexican food the way locals actually eat it. The small restaurants toward the back serve dishes like cochinita pibil or sopa de lima, which are rarely found in the same form at tourist-facing spots.
Going early in the morning gives you the best selection of fresh goods and fewer people in the aisles. Most stalls work with cash only, so it is worth having Mexican pesos on hand before you arrive.
Although Cancún is known for its tourism, this market is almost entirely oriented toward local residents and has almost no infrastructure aimed at foreign visitors. Price signs and labels are nearly always in Spanish only, which gives the place an everyday feel that is rare to find in the tourist zone.
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