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At nine o’clock on a recent Saturday night, the Daly City parking lot is packed, and a line crawls down half a block while pop music blares through the front doors. I grip my daughter’s hand and lead her through the sea of people, praying we don’t get separated in the chaos. Then, “Love Me” by Fia drops, and the whole crowd sways in unison, a group of girls in front serenading each other with the chorus.
It’s a typical night at the club, except we aren’t at a nightclub tonight. Instead, we’re at the brand new Seafood City supermarket at St. Francis Square, and the packed area I’m making a beeline for is the snack aisle, not the women’s bathroom on Ladies’ Night. Off to the side, the hungry crowd lines up patiently for pancit, kwek kwek (batter-fried quail eggs) and BBQ on a stick. Meanwhile, a lone shopper pulls up to the one checkout aisle that’s open with a full basket of groceries. I glance at him in equal parts pity and amusement, wondering if it’s the worst day for him to go grocery shopping or the best. But the truth is, no one seems bothered that the supermarket has erupted into an all-out dance party. Everyone is having the time of their lives.
These days, it seems that clubs are out, and Filipino grocery stores are in. All you need are comfortable shoes, an appetite for street food and a brave friend to join you in the line dance when a Tita beckons.
For the entire month of October, which happens to be Filipino American History Month, videos of this “Late Night Market Madness” party series have been popping up all over social media, showing a similar scene at Seafood City locations around the country: Bay Area luminaries P-Lo and DJ Noodles flexed their Filipino star power at Eagle Rock Plaza in L.A., and DJs in Seattle hyped up the crowd with a Backstreet Boys singalong…