Mercado Municipal General Nicolás Bravo
La Paz's municipal market in the Centro: fresh fish, meat and produce, and food stalls, open since 1964.
Note: Most people in La Paz call it the Mercado Bravo. It is a municipal market run by the city, not a supermarket chain.
The Mercado Municipal General Nicolás Bravo, the Mercado Bravo to most locals, is the city's municipal market on Calle Nicolás Bravo in the Centro, between Guillermo Prieto and Ignacio Ramírez. It opened in November 1964 and has about fifty stalls (locales) under one roof.
Stalls sell fresh fruit and vegetables, including seasonal produce such as pitaya and guava, meat and cold cuts from the butchers, and fish and seafood from the fishmongers. Food stalls serve guisos, seafood and regional empanadas, and the fish-taco stalls toward the back make fried fish and shrimp tacos and ceviche tostadas to order. A few stalls sell crafts and souvenirs.
The market opens daily from 6 AM to 4 PM, but the food stalls start to close in the early afternoon, so come for breakfast or an early lunch. Most stalls take cash only. Bring pesos, and ask at the stall before counting on a card or US dollars.
What You'll Find
- Fresh fruit and vegetables, including seasonal produce
- Butchers (carnicerías) and cold cuts
- Fish and seafood (pescaderías)
- Food stalls: fish and shrimp tacos, ceviche, guisos, regional empanadas
- Crafts and souvenirs
Payment
Sixty years of the Mercado Bravo
The market opened on 27 November 1964 with six merchants. By 2022 it had 47 active stalls, and in 2024 it counted about fifty. Some have been there a long time: in 2024 one cook had worked at the market for about 30 years, and one family business for 45.
Recent anniversaries in November have opened with a mass in the market's parking lot, where it has a chapel of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The city's economic development office and the stallholders' association organized the 60th in November 2024, with music, a live radio broadcast and gifts for shoppers.
The market is named after General Nicolás Bravo (1786–1854), an insurgent leader in Mexico's War of Independence remembered for freeing some 300 royalist prisoners, who later served three times as interim president of Mexico.
Sources: Diario El Independiente (Nov 2022) · POSTA (Feb 2024) · BCS Noticias (Nov 2024) · Wikipedia: Nicolás Bravo
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