How many market halls does Berlin have?

Berlin opened 14 municipal market halls between 1886 and 1892. Four still sell food today: Markthalle Neun, the Arminiusmarkthalle, the Marheineke Markthalle and the Ackerhalle, which houses a supermarket.

Are Berlin's market halls open on Sundays?

No. All four are closed on Sundays and public holidays. Markthalle Neun sometimes holds a special market on a Sunday, so check its calendar. Otherwise a flea market or a weekly market is the better Sunday plan.

When is Street Food Thursday at Markthalle Neun?

Every Thursday from 17:00 to 22:00 (checked on 11 November 2026). Arrive around 17:30 if you want to eat before the queues build after 19:00.

What are the opening hours of the Arminiusmarkthalle?

The hall is open Monday to Saturday, 8:00 to 22:00. Food stalls sell from about 10:00 to 20:00 (18:00 on Saturday), and the kitchens and bars run from 12:00 to 22:00. It is closed on Sundays and public holidays.

What happened to the Central Market Hall at Alexanderplatz?

It opened in 1886 with its own rail siding off the Stadtbahn, was badly bombed in 1944 and was later demolished. The widened Stadtbahn viaduct that once fed it is the main trace left.

Which Berlin market hall is the most original?

From the outside, the Ackerhalle in Mitte: it is the only hall whose exterior is still in its original 1888 state. Inside it is a supermarket. For the old atmosphere with stalls, the Arminiusmarkthalle in Moabit has kept its iron frame and has been in use since 1891.

Berlin Market Halls: Which Old Halls Still Sell Food, and When to Go

Yusuf Ucuz

3 days ago

6 min read

It is a wet Saturday in November and the plan for the afternoon has fallen apart. This is the moment people in Berlin remember the market halls: big brick buildings from the 1880s with iron roofs, food counters and a bar, where you can spend two hours without an umbrella. The catch is that most visitors only know one of them, arrive at the wrong hour, and find shutters.

Berlin once had fourteen of these halls. Four still sell food, and they are very different places. Which one is worth your afternoon depends on the day and the time far more than on any top-ten list.

Why Berlin built its market halls

Until the 1880s most Berliners bought food at open-air markets on the squares, in mud, rain and summer heat. The city was growing fast and the markets were a hygiene problem. In 1881 the city government, with the doctor Rudolf Virchow involved, settled on a plan: one central hall with its own railway siding, and a ring of smaller district halls where people actually lived.

It moved quickly. The Central Market Hall beside Alexanderplatz station and the first three district halls opened in May 1886. By 1892 there were fourteen, numbered I to XIV in the order they opened, most of them designed under the city architect Hermann Blankenstein. Once the halls were open, the city closed the old weekly markets, which tells you how confident it was.

A busy 19th-century market hall interior with a high iron and glass roof, rows of stalls and crowds of shoppers

Inside the Central Market Hall at Alexanderplatz, around 1890.

The confidence did not last. Shops, then department stores, took the customers, and four halls closed before the First World War. The Second World War destroyed most of the rest. Of the ten halls still standing, eight were wrecked. In West Berlin only three were put back into service, and the bombed central hall on Alexanderplatz was eventually demolished.

The large brick front of the Central Market Hall on a street corner at Alexanderplatz, with horse carts and pedestrians in front, photographed in 1906

The Central Market Hall on Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße in 1906. The site is now part of the area around Alexanderplatz station.

If you stand at Alexanderplatz today, the one trace left is the widened Stadtbahn viaduct that once carried goods trains to the hall. My walking tour starts at the World Clock a few minutes from that spot, and the Berlin Then and Now walk is built on exactly this kind of before and after, with an archive photo at every stop.

Berlin market halls today: which old halls still sell food

Four of the fourteen still sell food under their old roofs, and that is the list that matters for a visit:

Markthalle Neun (hall IX), Eisenbahnstraße in Kreuzberg, opened in 1891. The busiest and the most food-led.
Arminiusmarkthalle (hall X), Moabit, opened in December 1891. The only one-storey hall, and in use with no real break since it opened.
Marheineke Markthalle (hall XI), Bergmannkiez in Kreuzberg, opened in 1892 and rebuilt in the 1950s.
Ackerhalle (hall VI), Ackerstraße in Mitte, opened in 1888. The only hall whose outside is still in its original state, with a supermarket inside.

The other ten are gone or became something else. Hall II became the flower wholesale market and is now the Jewish Museum's academy. Hall IV's front building is part of the Federal Press Office. Hall VII left two front houses on Dresdener Straße, and the one on Legiendamm still has a restaurant called Zur kleinen Markthalle.

I made a print of that whole family: the fourteen halls in order, with the four that still sell food filled in, so the survivors stand out from the ten that do not. It is my Markthallen print, and making it was how I sorted out which hall is which.

Illustration of Berlin's fourteen numbered market halls as small building fronts in two columns on an ochre background, four drawn solid and ten in outline

Fourteen market halls, the four that still sell food filled in. My Markthallen print, printed to order.

Which hall is open when you are free

This is the part that trips visitors up. The halls do not share one timetable, and the hours on the door are not the hours when something is happening inside. Markthalle Neun opens its doors at 8:00, but most of its stalls only trade from noon. The Arminiusmarkthalle is open until 22:00, but its food shops close at 20:00 and its kitchens only start at 12:00. And on Sundays and public holidays all four are closed.

Pick the day you are in Berlin and a time in the tool below. It shows each hall's day, tells you which one is worth the trip at that hour, and can line up two or three halls into one afternoon.

You can also open the Berlin Market Hall Clock on its own page. I checked the hours on 11 November 2026 with each hall's own website and berlin.de. Single counters keep their own hours, so treat the timetable as the frame, not as a promise for one stall.

Markthalle Neun: go on Thursday evening or Saturday

Markthalle Neun is the one people mean when they say Berlin market hall. The hall opened on 1 October 1891, nearly lost its traders in the 1970s, was kept alive by an Aldi and a drugstore, and in 2011 was sold to a group backed by the neighbours instead of the highest bidder. Today it sells mostly regional and organic food, with a bakery, a butcher, cheese, coffee and a long row of lunch counters.

A crowded market hall with long wooden tables and diners under a high iron roof with skylights

Lunch tables under the iron roof of Markthalle Neun.

Two slots are worth planning around. Street Food Thursday runs every Thursday from 17:00 to 22:00, and it is the busiest evening of the week. On Saturday the big market runs from 10:00 to 18:00, with the most traders. On Monday to Thursday the smaller market runs from 12:00 to 18:00, and on Friday the big market starts at noon.

My move: for Street Food Thursday, arrive at 17:30, eat first and look around afterwards. After 19:00 the queues at the popular stands get long. The hall also runs special markets, some of them on Sundays, so check its calendar before you write a Sunday off. I wrote a separate guide to Markthalle Neun if this is the only hall you have time for.

Looking out through a wide arched passage of Markthalle Neun towards Pücklerstraße, a quiet stone floor in front

The passage from Markthalle Neun out to Pücklerstraße.

Arminiusmarkthalle: the one locals keep to themselves

The Arminiusmarkthalle in Moabit is the hall I send people to when they want the old atmosphere without the Kreuzberg crowds. It is a long, low brick hall with the iron frame on show, red flags hanging over the aisles, fresh food stalls and a ring of small kitchens and bars.

The long interior of the Arminiusmarkthalle in Moabit with an iron roof, hanging red flags and food stalls on both sides

The Arminiusmarkthalle in Moabit, open since December 1891.

The hall is open Monday to Saturday from 8:00 to 22:00. The food stalls sell from about 10:00 to 20:00, until 18:00 on Saturday, and the kitchens and bars run from noon to 22:00. That makes it the best hall for an early dinner: come between 18:00 and 20:00 and you get both the market and the kitchens. It is a short walk from U Turmstraße on the U9.

Marheineke Markthalle: a weekday lunch in the Bergmannkiez

The Marheineke Markthalle on Marheinekeplatz is the most practical of the four. The hall was rebuilt after the war and modernised since, so come for the food rather than the iron roof. It has fruit, cheese, bread and a good spread of lunch counters, and it suits a weekday when Markthalle Neun is quiet.

A bright modern market hall aisle with fruit and vegetable stalls and shoppers

Inside the Marheineke Markthalle in the Bergmannkiez.

It is open Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 20:00 and on Saturday from 9:00 to 18:00. Pair it with a walk down Bergmannstraße and up the hill in Viktoriapark, and you have a full morning in Kreuzberg.

Ackerhalle: come for the building

The Ackerhalle on the corner of Ackerstraße and Invalidenstraße is a supermarket, so there is no market to visit. It is still worth five minutes if you are near Rosenthaler Platz. The brick front is the original one from 1888, with terracotta fish, poultry, fruit and vegetables in the facade, and inside you buy your groceries under the old iron structure.

A supermarket inside a historic market hall, shelves under an old iron roof structure with skylights

Shopping under the 1888 roof of the Ackerhalle in Mitte.

A simple plan for a market hall afternoon

If you have one free afternoon and it is not a Sunday, this is how I would do it:

1. Thursday: lunch at the Marheineke Markthalle, a walk through the Bergmannkiez, then Markthalle Neun for Street Food Thursday from 17:30. 2. Saturday: Markthalle Neun for the big market in the late morning, then the Arminiusmarkthalle for an early dinner. 3. Any other weekday: Markthalle Neun between 12:00 and 18:00, or the Arminiusmarkthalle from noon, when its kitchens are open.

And if your free day is Sunday, skip the halls. Go to the Mauerpark flea market instead, or check the weekly markets for the next working day.

Image credits

Source and licence details for the 7 photographs used in this article.

Inside the Arminiusmarkthalle in Moabit: Andrzej Otrębski, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Inside the Central Market Hall at Alexanderplatz, around 1890: Hermann Rückwardt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Central Market Hall in 1906: Max Missmann, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Lunch tables in Markthalle Neun: Fridolin freudenfett, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The passage from Markthalle Neun to Pücklerstraße: Jörg Fuhrmann (Intermerker), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Inside the Marheineke Markthalle: Steffen Zahn, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Inside the Ackerhalle in Mitte: Andreas Praefcke, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.