Night Noodle Markets beat all expectations

More than 167,000 hungry patrons visited the markets over 10 nights.

The event, presented by Brisbane Times Good Food Month, saw 22 stalls serve up Asian street food in the Cultural Forecourt at South Bank.

The biggest night was Saturday July 19, when 28,547 people braved the winter chill to gobble up gyoza, devour dumplings and chow down on curry.

The markets' popularity forced many vendors to go to extraordinary lengths to keep supplies coming.

Zagyoza owner Yachiyo Lauks said they pre-prepared 24,000 pieces of gyoza before the markets began, estimating that would last seven days.

They sold 4000 on the first night alone, and in four days their supplies were gone.

“I was nearly in tears thinking I have nothing left to sell!” the owner of the cult West End store said.

“My staff just said 'no, we’re going to go back, we’re going to start making, you’re going to make mixture, we’ll fold, keep yourself together'.”

So Ms Lauks, her business partner and their two full-time staff would pack up each night, head back to their base and start all over again.

“The whole recipe is my own - sauces, everything. We never outsource anywhere, so I was making teriyaki sauce, black bean sauce, chilli Cajun, and the staff are just folding away, folding away until 6 o’clock in the morning,” she said.

“We would go have a couple of hours sleep, then come back and fold, fold, fold.”

Ms Lauks said by the end staff were folding gyoza on site as customers were ordering, with an estimated final tally of 50,000 pieces sold.

“The staff could just easily have gone away and said I can’t cope with this, but they just stuck with us... they were telling me to have a break,” she said.

“It was like being in a battlezone, but I survived because of my good soldiers.”

Good Food Month director Joanna Savill said organisers and stallholders were thrilled to see Brisbane's "huge appetite" for the event.

She said they were now reviewing operation feedback to make the Night Noodle Markets even better in 2015.

"Certainly we can see there is a huge amount of interest so we will definitely look to get bigger and make it work well for people, even on a larger scale," she said.

"It could also mean extending to daytime hours during weekends...lots to think about and luckily, 11.5 months to get working on it."

Sleep deprivation aside, Ms Lauks was thrilled to have been a part of Brisbane’s Night Noodle Markets.

Zagyoza began operating in West End about 11 months ago, and Ms Lauks said the store's location on Vulture Street meant their customers were mostly local business people.

“The Night Noodle Markets was an enormous opportunity to get our name known to other people,” she said.

“I think we will have around 70 to 80,000 gyoza ready for the next time. Then we will be OK!”