It is the largest weekly open-air market in the country.

Smorgasburg first opened in May 2011, and has since become a summer staple in the city. The original location is in Williamsburg, and there are also now markets in Prospect Park and lower Manhattan.

The markets are currently closed for the season, but the judges are now holding auditions for next year. So what does it take for a vendor to get into Smorgasburg? NY1 went to Brooklyn to find out.

Vendors come to a loft in Red Hook to audition, complete with a kitchen where they cook up their dishes, then serve them up to a panel of judges. The process feels familiar: think "The Voice" meets "Shark Tank" meets "Chopped."

The judges include Eric Demby, the co-founder of Smorgasburg, who says during auditions, he’s the one who tries to calm nerves. Jonathan Butler came up with the name Smorgasburg. He says he’s the business-minded one. And Rob Blackman says he’s most like Pharrell.

On this day, there was a trio of young chefs auditioning, hoping to bring their falafel from a brick-and-mortar location upstate to the city.

The judges, of course, taste test. But they also want to make sure the numbers add up and the product stands out. Afterwards, they debrief. Their concern with this group was that it was “just good falafel." To earn a spot at the market, there needs to be a “wow factor."

During the audition, the judges jokingly asked if they had thought about making their falafel purple, to be more eye-grabbing.

So after, NY1 asked the judges if they would have been more impressed if the falafel was, in fact, purple.

Demby said, “That’s kinda the question. I think about Instagram and TikTok. I don’t want everything to be a rainbow, and I don’t want everything to have Lucky Charms on them, but its more just like, you want people to be successful.”

Butler said, “I’m not sure if they just added purple food dye to it, but if it’s because one of their grandmothers only had access to some purple flour that she would put in these things or something and that’s why it was purple — if there was a story that supported why it was purple, yeah, I think it would be a little bit of a leg up.”

The judges are tasked with deciding whether each vendor has what it takes to make it, to join the ranks of Mighty Quinn's BBQ, Home Frite, McClure's Pickles, Early Bird Granola, and all the others that got selected by Smorgasburg and are now successful local businesses.

While the tastings can clearly mean everything to the vendors, the judges say the process means a lot to them too.

“It’s this nice reminder of why we do what we do. It’s their livelihoods, it’s their souls in there,” Demby said.

Which is why they all say they look at themselves less like “judges”, and more as a pipeline to opportunity. Because once you’re in, you’ll always be part of the family.

“Smorgasburg has now filtered out, it’s tentacles are kind of everywhere, and we love that, it’s the best feeling,” Demby said.

To apply, visit Smorgasburg's website.