‘This fest is for everyone’: In Houston, suhoor festivals during Ramadan are a growing trend

From Houston Public Media:

After 11 p.m. on a recent Friday, crowds were just starting to grow at a suhoor fest at the Arab American Cultural and Community Center in southwest Houston.

Outside, food vendors were selling everything from burgers to Nashville-style hot chicken to matcha. Everything was halal. Inside, there were tables filled with jewelry, desserts and perfumes.

Houston Halal Events hosts one of the largest suhoor festivals in the area. Last year, its event drew crowds of about 10,000 people.

“This fest is for everyone,” said Hafsa Zulfi, who started the festival in 2024 with her friends to support charities.

“It’s not just for Muslims,” she added. “It’s for everyone from every walk of life.”

Suhoor is the pre-dawn meal Muslims eat during the month of Ramadan, before they begin fasting during the daylight hours.

Mosques have long held bazaars during Ramadan. And restaurants have extended their hours – or opened their doors before daybreak – during the holy month.

But the concept of suhoor festivals is a newer phenomenon in Houston, according to local food bloggers, event organizers and young Muslims.

“I did not grow up with this,” Zulfi said. “It’s a recent thing that started with the cool kids, and now, you know, we’re part of it … and we’re just really excited.”

This year, Zulfi and her team invited the Giving Games Foundation, which was raising money for surgeries for people in Gaza, and humanitarian nonprofit Human Appeal to set up booths.

Muzz – a Muslim dating app – hosted a booth near Riz Creamery, which sells rice pudding. Together, they fundraised for a hospital in Jordan for Syrian and Palestinian refugees.

While Zulfi weaved in and out of the cultural center, making sure everything was in place, customers began sampling the food.

Halal food blogger Zain Mohammed and fellow food influencer Sam Riche chatted near a food truck.

“This is actually my first major suhoor event I’ve gone to in the last four years since I’ve been blogging,” Riche told Houston Public Media.

Mohammed started the night with samosas, paratha and keema, a ground beef dish. He said he encourages new restaurant owners to grow their businesses by embracing halal options — food prepared in accordance with Islamic teachings and traditions.

It’s a significant customer base, with hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the Houston area.

According to the Pew Research Center, about 3% of the city’s adult population identifies as Muslim — the largest percentage of any major city in the southeastern United States.

“We Muslims, we love burgers, we love cheesesteak, we love pizza,” Mohammed said. “We love Texas barbecue, ribs, brisket.”

Mohammed said suhoor festivals took off locally after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, popping up all over the city in the past three years. However, he said, this year is more subdued.

“I feel that a lot of owners are burned out, because it requires a lot of effort to run these festivals,” he said.

Typically, suhoor festivals start around 11 p.m. or midnight and run well into the early morning hours.

They’ve also become a nationwide trend – with cities from Dallas to Atlanta to Cleveland hosting suhoor festivals this year. The Texas Suhoor Fest, which markets itself as the largest in the state, held festivals in Dallas and the Houston suburb of Sugar Land this year.

Halal food blogger Mir Khan organized a suhoor festival this year with Q’s Deli in Sugar Land. Just a few years ago, the main suhoor options outside of private homes were restaurants that stayed open late, he said.

Then, some of those restaurants began inviting small businesses to set up shop in their parking lots.

“Now people are renting out parks or a parking lot and having tons of vendors out,” he said.

At the Houston Halal Events suhoor festival, there were more than 80 vendors.

Norah Alenezi was selling bakhoor – which is similar to incense – and perfume.

It was her third Ramadan festival this year and she had nine more left this month.

“For me, as a small business, I always look forward to getting more customers, different kind(s) of customers,” she said.

Raed Ghoul and Danya Okal stopped by Alenezi’s table.

“You have to smell the perfume,” Alenezi told Ghoul.

“Just spray it on your hands and let me know tomorrow,” she added.

The couple moved to Texas from New Jersey about two months ago. They said festivals like these give them a chance to meet new people and connect with their communities.

“We’re Arab – we’re social,” Ghoul said. “This is how we grow up. So we like to go to events, meet people.”

A DJ pumped music from a stage inside. A group of teenagers wandered into the ballroom of the cultural center, weaving between vendors and crowds.

The girls – Zeina Sabry, Sama Hagag and Maryam Zaafran – were attending the festival for the second year in a row.

“I think suhoor fests are really a way for the community to come together, especially during Ramadan,” Hagag said.

That same night, just a 15-minute drive down the road, the Muse Hookah Café in Sugar Land was hosting its own suhoor festival.

“All of us are fasting through the day, so we need something to do at nighttime,” said Shaz Dawra, one of the café’s owners. “That’s when we’re awake. We’re trying to eat.”

Food trucks lined the rim of the parking lot and young crowds filled tables scattered throughout the area. A herd of motorcycles was parked outside the café.

Shumaila Dosani and her friends heard about the festival through Instagram.

“Some people might be from Pakistan, some people might be from India, some people might be from Saudi Arabia,” Dosani said. “But we all get together because we’re one community at the end of the day.”

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