Center City pop-up storefront showcases immigrant entrepreneurs

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A new pop-up storefront in Center City, Philadelphia, aims to support immigrant-owned small businesses by selling their merchandise.

Located in the former home of The Center for Architecture at 1218 St., Immigrant Marché opened its doors at the end of October and will sell its products through the end of the year. The store gets its name from a program run by The Welcoming Center to aid businesses operated by foreign-born residents and is a collaboration with Making Worlds Bookstore.

The pop-up features handmade earrings, bags, bouquets and artwork from several immigrant-owned small businesses, along with a curated selection of social justice-centered books from Making Worlds Bookstore, a nonprofit cooperative and social center that shuttered its brick-and-mortar store in West Philadelphia in December 2025.

Layla El Tannir, director of entrepreneurship and Immigrant Marché at The Welcoming Center, said the storefront is the latest experiment in growing the multicultural marketplace and nonprofit, which supports immigrant-owned businesses selling packaged food and beverage, beauty and craft items.

Since launching in 2024, Immigrant Marché has focused on plugging into existing markets, including the Christmas Village and Reading Terminal Market in Center City, and one at the Bok Building in South Philadelphia.

The Center City pop-up allows entrepreneurs to showcase wares in a brick-and-mortar space.

“We had some momentum, and people wanted us to be around for the holiday season, and this works out [perfectly],” she said. “We’re right in Center City still, very close to the Welcoming Center, in between Christmas Village and the Reading Terminal Market, and so we thought, why not?”

The collaboration with Making Worlds Bookstore is an example of The Welcoming Center’s mission of promoting inclusive economic growth through immigrant integration.

“It’s not just about immigrant-owned, but also neighbors of immigrants, native-borns,” El Tannir said.