Bull Ring Open Market

Nothing beats the riotous flavour and experience of the BIRMINGHAM markets. Always guaranteed to walk away with that sense of achievement and hands full of carrier bags with fresh produce– fantastically cheaper than the lowest of priced supermarkets and superior quality, not only that it’s truly local businesses. Well worth a regular visit

Birmingham open market is an absolute lifesaver! We’ve been shopping here for over five years and the quality, variety and price far outweigh any convenience of shopping at a supermarket.
From standard fruit and veg to more exotic Caribbean and Asian foodstuffs the open market has something for everyone, and usually something to didn’t know you wanted.
The produce is fairly seasonal so when something is in season it is cheap as hell like 3 butternut squash for a pound or bunches of asparagus for 50p.
The frozen food stall at the back is well worth checking out for your freezer-​stocking bargains and the stall at the front with eggs and cheese is a must. Seriously, you’ll hear the egg man shouting from mills away!

Great Quality produce and great prices. Shop around for the best deals, but on average we save between 50p to £1 on each item — meaning a £10+ a week saving on our shopping (compared to supermarkets). The traders are friendly and will normally do you a deal if you need a large amount of a particular type of fruit or veg. Well worth a trip! Remember to take your canvas bags!

I can’t understand why, in this deep recession, more people aren’t buying their salad, fruit, herbs & vegetables from Birmingham market. Most items are £1 pound for a mixing bowl full and you can choose your own bowl. Even the produce which isn’t sold by the bowl is cheaper, avocados are 2 or 3 for £1 and cucumbers 2 for £1. This week they have especially nice tomatoes, delicious looking cherries and pineapples. I have started green juicing for health reasons and was struggling to buy enough fresh items. I don’t have a car so can’t carry too much at one go or take advantage of the fresh eggs for sale by the tray. Granted some of the things don’t look as uniformly shaped as in the supermarkets but this is real food and it tastes good. A lot of us are struggling to put food on the table so why not try the market?

I sit at the café with a cup of tea or coffee for 50p, the cheapest in town, sometimes porridge£1, and share news, sweets and fruit with everyone. I have been known to share china tea cups and plates on Royal Wedding day and other found or donated items as i get the,. I wander round the stalls looking at fabric though I don’t buy as much as before as I don’t sew anymore. Shambala bracelets have been my pet buy for a few months but now it looks as if i’ll be buying sun glasses. My usual purchases are mangoes, bananas, mints and chocolate. sometimes i buy pies and dairy products. At least once per week a trolly load of fruit and veg get distributed amongst f. The stall holders are mostly friendly people though some are known to be very rude. A lot of food is wasted here but you will be abused, ganged up on if you attempt to pick it up from the ground. So every evening i watch as food it sept up and put in bins. Some stall holders are now opening on Wednesdays which used to be Birmingham Closing day

This market is great, great location, great people and great produce at such great prices! i think my new word for this review is great. I am trying to start eating healthy and eat more fruit and vegetables however i find at supermarkets the price puts me off when i can buy 2 packets of oven chips for same price as 1 cucumber. But this market is great (7^th great) The prices are cheaper than the supermarkets and you get 3 times as much and the quality and taste, you guessed it, is great!
Even if its slightly out your way the money you might send getting here you will quickly get back after the bargains you pick up.
All in All one fantastic place which i highly recommend if your trying to save money and support as last year Birmingham council was thinking of closing it down!

Wow! What a place. This is a great example of an outdoor market, with all the hustle and bustle that implies. Most of the stalls in the outdoor market sell fresh produce, with stalls selling non edible goods such as clothes generally based in the indoor market.
You’ve got a very wide choice of vegetables here, with many bargains to be had, and a few more exotic vegetables/​fruits creeping in, as well as a stall selling organic vegetables. There’s also a great cheese stall, stalls selling biscuits and confectionery, and a couple of stalls selling DVDs and video games.
This is a great place to come if you’re looking for bargains on fresh food, and the colourful characters who shop there (and work there) all add to the fun. However, I would say that those who don’t like crowds or aren’t too steady on their feet might want to give it a miss as it does get quite hectic and can be difficult to negotiate.

This is a real Birmingham jewel. Rumours were abound that Birmingham City Council were planning to close the open market (probably to make way for a few more Subway and H&Ms) and I think there would be some trouble on the streets if this happened.
A proper old fashioned outdoor market, you can get all of your fruit and vegetables for the week and still have change from a tenner. Really, I bought so much cheese, milk, bread, fruit and veg one day that I couldn’t carry it all. Had to give a carrier bag of it away to lighten my load.
It is always busy and the traders are all great characters, screaming their bargains at the top of their lungs. And as if it wasn’t cheap enough already, if you go late in the afternoon you can pick up whole carrier bags full of fruit and veg for 50p. Sometimes they will even just give it away to you if you are buying other stuff!
Fruit & veg, Caribbean and Asian specialties, bread, dairy, household products, frozen foods, even electronics all super cheap. It’s right next to the rag market so you can pop in there for some good second hand clothes and treasures too. There are a couple of old fashioned burger vans too so you can take 5 minutes off your feet to have a cup of tea for 50p.
Definitely recommend going here, save loads of money, get good fresh produce and enjoy the characters you will meet.

There is nothing like this market — it is awesome.
If you are looking for fresh fruit and vegetables at a bargain price this is the place to visit. It is a proper old school market with lots of hustle and bustle, but also lots of noise, mess and smells.
I do’t believe there is any plan to close the open market but the wholesale market that supplies the stalls (and hundreds of cafes and restuarants in the Birmingham area) is under threat. This would dramatically affect the price, quality and overall charm of this market too.

It’s a real foodies paradise. You can get authentic and great value ingredients all in one place from Asia to the Carribean and the variety of fish and meat on offer would blow any food lovers mind! I can buy goat and mutton, rabbit and pheasant as well as live crab and oysters. There is a fantastic range of fish on sale which you can buy whole so you can see how really fresh it is.
O.k so some say it’s old fashioned or tacky but who wants anymore bland, clinical looking same old same old appealing to the so called mass markets.
I also want to say how lucky Birmingham is that it is so culturally diverse as it is these people who regularly shop here and have kept these markets going and made them so vibrant.
These Markets need to be kept central and are vital to the identity of the city centre. I know I rather shop there anyday rather than feel like part of the living dead who spend all there time roaming round the bullring shops.
Save our Markets.

Vibrant, colourful, noisy, aromatic, lots of stalls with all sorts of stuff.
‘£1 a bowl, pick your own’ the man shouted, bowls top heavy with bananas, sweet chillies and other fruits and veg — fantastic value.
‘Too expensive’, the old codger shouted back, smiling.
Great place, marvellous contrast to the pristine marbled hallways of the Bull Ring Shopping Centre.
Recommended.

I absolutely love the bullring open market and have done since I was about 15. I used to take the train there every saturday, just to take in the atmosphere and grab a few bargains at the same time.
The market is still quite big even though they erected the biggest shopping centre in Europe right next door to it.
There is such a vast variety of products to buy, I always enjoyed the record stalls and clothes. I still love walking round the market today, even if I am not buying anything I just like to soak up the atmosphere. Probably one of the most cultural places in Britain still to this day.

You definitely have to be in the mood for the Open Market. There is a huge variety of stalls and goods available to buy but the large crowds, similarly looking for a bargain can be off-​putting.
There are a number of stalls however that sell things that you just can’t seem to get anywhere else. Offcuts of fabric which can be very cheap are especially handy.
However, the best part is probably the fruit and veg and if you are willing to carry large bags of produce, you’re save yourself loads of money when compared with supermarket prices.

I’ve never been a huge fan of the Birmingham Outdoor Markets. If you have the time and you’re up for it, then you can certainly find a bargain or two here, but for the most part I find the place quite tacky.
If you come here on a Saturday, then brace yourself for the huge crush because this place gets packed!
The one good thing about the Outdoor Markets is the fruit and veg stalls — they sell pretty much everything and for local fresh produce it’s quite worth a visit.
Situated at the back of the Bullring, it isn’t the sort of place visitors to the city might stop by — it’s definitely a Brummie place in my opinion!

The Bullring Open Market is quite good, although to be honest there are better places to shop nowadays without the effort of battling your way through Town.
Since the New Bullring was unveiled, they have made an effort to bring the Open Market up to date and made it more suitable for disabled shoppers by widening the aisles. Birmingham City Council have also realised that we do not have the climate of Barbados so have belatedly added a covering over the various stalls and their aisles so that when the inevitable rain starts you won’t get soaking wet with your shopping.
The main reason I visit the Open Market is for the fruit and veg as there is generally an excellent selection at prices much cheaper than in the supermarket. The only thing I don’t buy from here are the potatoes because I would struggle to get them back to the car, which is a shame as they have some extremely good deals on the large sacks of spuds.
I regularly buy apples, bananas, plums and kiwi fruits from the market and they also stock other fruits such as strawberries, cherries and stuff like that. I find the softer fruits are often not terribly fresh from this market though so tend to only buy produce that I can check for freshness and quality.
The veg is great, absolutely brilliant in both quality and price. When I was in Town yesterday I bought some leeks, onions, parsnips, carrots, tomatoes and butternut squash — everything came from the same stall and only cost me just over £4, the same items in Tesco would have cost at least £8 so I think I definitely had a bargain.
There are a few clothes stalls, although nothing special and the prices are not particularly good either. The stalls seem to specialise in size 12 and below and although there are a couple of rails of items which cost just £1 or £1.50, these are hardly the height of style and generally look grubby and old fashioned.
The people who run the stalls in the Open Market are personable and friendly, they are happy to give you a discount if you’re buying plenty from them and will often discount the price if it simply looks like you are going to walk away without buying anything.