If someone forwarded you the Carnívoro Fest poster on WhatsApp, keep it for the dates and ignore the address. The festival changed venues — announced on September 20 — and the artwork that's been circulating for weeks still shows the previous location.
We're leading with that because it's what will send people to the wrong place at two in the afternoon on a Saturday. Everything else on the poster still holds: same dates, same hours, same free entry.
When and where
- Saturday October 3, from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m.
- Sunday October 4, from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m. — it opens earlier and closes earlier than Saturday.
- At the Complejo Deportivo Kukulkán esplanade, the same complex as the Leones de Yucatán baseball stadium.
- The entrance is at Circuito Colonias and Calle 28, in Unidad Morelos.
- Free entry both days. You only pay for what you eat and drink.
If landmarks work better for you than an address: Poliforum Zamná is right next door, Carlos Iturralde stadium is across the way and Plaza Kukulkán is just over the road. It's the corner everyone in Mérida can picture without thinking.
The full festival guide, with the map
What's there besides eating
The organizers — Yucatán Gastrocultural — have announced 40 vendors for this fourth edition, five more than in March. And it isn't only food stalls: there's lucha libre, live music, cocktails and craft beer, premium cuts, a shaded walkway and a seating area. They bill it as a family event and as pet friendly.
For scale: the November 2025 edition drew 12,000 people, according to the organizer himself. This is not a weekend street market.
What we're bringing
Parceros will have a stand both days. We're bringing what holds up to live fire and works standing up: the Castacón — our pork belly — the Chicharrón Trancao, and cheese arepas straight off the griddle.
And we're launching two things that aren't on our menu and that you won't find at the restaurant: arepa tortillas and plantain tortillas. Arepa corn and plantain, in tortilla form — fold it, fill it, eat it walking. The festival struck us as the right place to try them out.
One thing we'd rather say ourselves than have anyone discover at the counter: at the festival these come in festival portions at festival prices, which aren't the restaurant's. The Castacón at the restaurant, for instance, is a different proposition:
On our menu the Castacón costs $750 and it's over 1.2 kg, meant for four. On the festival grill it goes out in a portion you can eat standing up, at its own price.
Three things before you go
- Check the venue on the festival's official accounts before heading out. We don't organize it: if anything moves again, their word is the one that counts.
- Sunday opens at 12 and closes at 10. That's the schedule people get wrong most often.
- The list of all 40 vendors hasn't been published yet. They're announcing them on their Instagram.
And if you leave on Sunday night still hungry for our food, the restaurant is downtown at Calle 62 #443 — with the full menu.
