A date has been set for this year's St Marks Road Grand Iftar, which will back on the evening of April 6. The annual event, which started in 2017, has become a tradition in Bristol and an opportunity for the whole community to join Muslims for an evening meal to break fast during Ramadan.
While the outdoor community event, which involves giving out free food on a large scale, had grown in size each year, in recent years it was cancelled due to the pandemic. In 2022 people came together for the Grand Iftar on St Marks Road for the first time since the large gathering of 2019, when the road was filled with thousands of people, but the event was scaled back.
This year the organisers have said that they will not be able to accommodate for the kind of numbers that were catered to in the 2019 Iftar but it will be bigger than last year, which after much discussion, was an invite-only event for 150 people. This year they would like to cater to 500 people on St Marks Road but will also hold another Grand Iftar at College Green which will cater to around 1,000 people.
