The first market in years made a return to Newcastle's Bigg Market on Friday and, despite the weather, received a warm welcome from all ages.
The so-called Bigg Foodie Friday is the first in what's to be a series of monthly food events back at the historic market site which has undergone a host of improvements.
And food stalls, tents and trailers set up along the length of the street became increasingly busy from the 11am start and by lunch-time there were lengthy queues at the wood-fired pizza van and the doughnut stall was already sold out.
Nick Birss, owner of Laneway & Co., had sent staff back to his cafe in nearby High Bridge for doughnut reinforcements, having been caught out by the level of demand.
With a deal of coffee and a doughnut for £4, he said: "We had around 150 and sold out in about an hour and a half."
The market re-launch by district improvement company NE1 Ltd follows the debut of the Bigg Market Bash in April, an event arranged to celebrate the street's revamp and encourage families back to the area.
For food traders taking part, the Bash was a chance to test the water and the day left the likes of Laneway and Meat:Stack - which runs a popular burger outlet around the corner in the Grainger Market - keen to also take part in the new Bigg Foodie Friday.
Other traders at the event, which was due to end at 3pm, included Fire & Dough Pizzas; Geordie Banger Co; Curry Rolls; Papa Ganoush and Chucho's, while the street's restaurants Kafe Neon and Simply Greek were also in on the act.
Their customers, many of whom were making use of the pop-up picnic benches, deckchairs and seating areas which had been specially installed, were a mix of all ages, including grandparents, students and city workers on their lunch break.
Among the latter were Phillip Scales and Matthew Thorpe who, having heard about the market, had came up from their quayside office and were waiting for their pizza orders to cook.
Both said they would be back for future markets and Phillip added: "I think it's great."
He said of the Bigg Market upgrade: "I think NE1 are doing great things. They've done a lot of hard work here."
Nigel and Leslie Heppell, from Washington, had chanced upon the event while out with their granddaughter, two-year-old Neve who was enjoying sausage from the stalls which they thought "very good value".
They welcomed the improvements although they'd had a bit of a struggle negotiating the new tiered levels with a pushchair.
And Nigel said: "I knew some work had been done here but the surrounding infrastructure is a bit wanting."
He remembered markets regularly taking place in the street during the sixties and said: "We're a fan of the Grainger Market so anything that's like that, we like.
"We've just come back from the continent and every town there has a market which is very varied."
The city centre 's original weekly markets continued until the late nineties when the Bigg Market began to decline.
Their return following the revamp, which was helped by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, comes with a more environmentally-friendly message - in keeping with the times - in its aim to keep the events entirely free of single-use plastic.
The Friday markets, which will feature a changing line-up of food outlets, will continue on a monthly basis through the summer with upcoming dates for the diary being June 28; July 26; August 30 and September 27.
