Bagels and lox are coming back to the Seaport. Loxfest, the annual festival built around New York's smoked-fish culture, returns to Pier 17 on Saturday, September 19, running in two sessions from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 1 to 3:30 p.m., with general admission and VIP tickets available for all ages starting at $25.
The second annual event is presented by FultonFishMarket.com, the online arm of the historic Fulton Fish Market, and will bring together local restaurants and bagel makers for a day of lox-centric bites, samples, giveaways and live music, according to Time Out. Tickets include entry plus one to three food tokens depending on the package, and additional tokens will be sold on-site, with group packages also available.
“Bagels and lox are such an enduring part of New York's food culture, and Fulton Fish Market has anchored that seafood tradition for over two centuries,” said Mike Tonetti, CEO of FultonFishMarket.com, per the same report. Confirmed vendors so far include Greenberg's Bagels, Casa Cugine, Peck Slip Social, Paris Café, and 19 Cleveland, with more participants still to be announced.
A Homecoming for a 204-Year-Old Market
Holding the festival at Pier 17 carries more than logistical weight. The original Fulton Fish Market opened along Lower Manhattan's South Street Seaport in 1822 and operated on the East River waterfront for 183 years before relocating to the South Bronx in November 2005, ending nearly two centuries of Lower Manhattan fishmonger operations, according to Hoodline's earlier reporting. Bringing the market's consumer-facing brand back to the Seaport each fall functions as a kind of homecoming to the neighborhood where the trade began.
These days, the market's 23 wholesale co-op vendors handle 1 million to 2 million pounds of seafood nightly across a 430,000-square-foot refrigerated facility in the South Bronx, generating roughly $1 billion in annual revenue and supplying 45 percent of the city's total seafood demand, per that same Hoodline account. This summer, city leaders allocated $25 million in municipal capital funding to modernize that Hunts Point hub with carbon-reduction systems, heat reuse, a community demonstration kitchen and public tour access, a reinvestment secured by City Council Member Justin Sanchez.
Growing From Its 2025 Debut
Loxfest debuted in 2025 as the first annual bagels-and-smoked-salmon festival, launching with a single-day event at Pier 16 that featured two two-hour tasting sessions and tickets starting at $40, according to Forbes. This year's edition has grown its sessions to two and a half hours each and moved a few piers over to Pier 17, while lowering the base entry price to $25.
The festival is co-produced by experiences platform Bucket Listers and production company nexwrk, alongside host FultonFishMarket.com, according to Tribeca's NY Patch. Bucket Listers is handling ticket distribution and promotional packaging for the multi-session event.
A Vendor Lineup Steeped in Seaport History
Among the confirmed vendors, Paris Café brings its own deep roots to the district. Located at 119 South Street near Pier 17, the brasserie originally opened in 1873 across from the historic fish market and once served Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Edison and Butch Cassidy, per Time Out's earlier coverage. It closed in 2020 during the pandemic before reopening under new management and celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2023.
Greenberg's Bagels represents the newer wave of the city's bagel scene. The shop opened its first location on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighborhood in February 2020, just weeks before pandemic shutdowns, under co-founders Julian Cavin-Zeidenstein and Jamison Blankenship, according to BKMAG. It has since expanded into Manhattan with a Greenwich Village location opened in 2024.
Casa Cugine, meanwhile, shows how the festival is folding in social-media-driven concepts alongside old-school delis. The Italian-American sandwich shop opened in summer 2025 at 427 Graham Avenue in Williamsburg, launched by Staten Island food reviewer and influencer Danny Mondello, known online as “Meals by Cug,” per NY Patch. The shop took over the longtime home of former neighborhood mainstay Caffe Capri.
Rounding out the local lineup, Peck Slip Social sits just a short walk from Pier 17 at 36 Peck Slip in the Seaport District. The MediterAsian small-plates and whiskey-focused lounge was established by television cinematographer Will Hartman and features an extensive whiskey selection with weekly live entertainment, according to The Infatuation.
Part of a Bigger Fall Food Festival Season
Loxfest isn't the only carb-and-cure celebration hitting the city this fall. The 7th annual New York BagelFest is set for November 15 at Citi Field in Queens, bringing together more than 25 bagel purveyors from 10 states and five countries, according to Time Out. Where BagelFest leans into competitive bagel baking on a national and international scale, Loxfest keeps its focus narrower and more local: smoked salmon, appetizing culture, and Fulton Fish Market's waterfront heritage at the Seaport.
