Diners visiting this weekend can expect award-winning Korean-fried wings, paella, huge buckets of dirty fries, and exclusively designed cocktails.

A foodie event that raised more than £27,000 for local charities when it launched in Norwich this summer has officially opened its second site in Ipswich.

The organiser of Junkyard Market (devout foodie Michael Femi-Ola) says he couldn’t be happier to branch out into Suffolk’s county town, bringing a unique outdoor dining experience to Green Parking car park (formerly home to B&Q) on Grafton Way.

This weekend’s sessions to the free ticketed street food market have already sold out, with tickets for coming weekends until December 31, released online each Monday.

“We really want to make Ipswich a hub,” Michael says. “The reason we’ve come here is it’s close to Norwich where we’ve been before, and we were excited to expand across East Anglia. Ipswich is a massive part of the region so we felt it was only natural to be here as our first new location. The site owners, Green Parking, have been fabulous, helping with local knowledge and finding local contractors to use. They said because of lockdown the car park’s been pretty much empty week on week, so it’s great the space is being utilised.”

Nine stallholders and three bars are in situ at Junkyard Market, changing every week, and mixing between local street food vendors, and names diners might recognise from London events such as Kerb or Street Feast.

For the opening weekend visitors can expect Junkyard cocktails, premium spirits, Baileys hot chocolate and mulled wine from the Junkyard bar team, as well as a specialist bar from Jewbel – a London start-up making natural, vegan lager cut with grapefruit, peach or elderflower.

Sweet P’s, which had a Southern barbecue-style restaurant in Ipswich are attending, as well Bucket List (lovedin Norfolk for their incredible loaded fries), and Buffalo Joes – famed for their award-winning Korean wings.

Next weekend (from December 11 to 13) you can get your hands on feasts from the Handmade Pizza Co, Bucket List, Road Dogs, Tongue and Cheek Burgers, Village Tea Room & Bakery (crepes), Yorky Shack (Yorkshire pudding wraps), Ravenous Fudge and more.

“I think we’ve got a really good mix of new traders people might not have seen before, and local traders, it’s about a 50/50 mix,” adds Michael. “That sets our event apart. It’s really about the community. We want to be longer term here and to bring something great for local people. Even though we’re based in a car park we’re high-end, not budget. By the end of this project it will have cost us over £150,000 to come here and put in the infrastructure. It’s like nine new restaurants opening each week!”

On December 11 Junkyard Market will have its Christmas light switching on event. “We’re going to make it a real occasion,” smiles Michael. “All our installations are coming out, and we’ll have all our set designs in, including our light tunnel. Everything’s made by our set design team – a lot of them usually work on festivals but because the season was decimated this year they began working on our stuff in the summer. It’s going to be great to see all that going in and I hope it will help Ipswich get into the Christmas spirit.”

Ambitious Michael says he hopes to have Junkyard Market running in 20 locations by the end of 2021. And ambition is certainly in his blood. Nine years ago, aged 18, he set up a party night at a relatively unknown club for A level results night in Norwich – with 4,000 people attending, leading to a bidding war between local nightclubs for him to promote regular student events – which still run today.

Michael went on to study at UEA and had an events partnership with the university before setting up the UK’s first fully independent freshers’ fair in the city.

So why a food market? And why now?

“I love food! I saw the concept in London five years ago and had it in the back of my mind. On the shelf. When Covid-19 happened all our work went in the hospitality and events sector and I took a bet, thinking people were going to feel safer outdoors. I knew we had access to this space in Norwich because offices weren’t using car parks, and decided to go out and bring this food and drink concept.”

Incredibly, to incentivise street food vendors to attend Junkyard Market Norwich, Michael paid each business £1,000.

“We were fairly unknown and had seven days to get up-and-running. Trying to entice traders who had never even heard of Norwich before was crazy. We paid them up front because we were so confident we would be busy. They came and they are still with us now. And we managed to raise £27,500 for local homeless and addiction charities too in that seven week run in the summer.”

Junkyard Market Ipswich will raise funds for FIND (Ipswich Food Bank).

Groups of up to six people only can be seated (mixed households are allowed) in the outside setting, which has capacity for 430 guests and is under cover.

Sessions are from 5pm to 7.30pm and 7.30pm to 10pm on Fridays, and every two and a half hours from midday to 10pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Each weekend’s tickets will be released here on the preceding Monday.

“We’re hoping to bring some real energy to this part of Ipswich,” Michael adds. “I can’t wait!”