A record 900 food vendors have applied for the fall season at Smorgasburg, organizers said this week, competing for just 40 open stalls across the Williamsburg and Prospect Park markets. Last year's lottery drew 610 applications.

Market director Talia Brooks attributed the surge to a wave of home cooks who built followings during the winter's pop-up boom and now want a permanent weekend address. "We're seeing people apply with 40,000 Instagram followers and no commercial kitchen," she said. "The food is often spectacular. The paperwork is often not."

The seasonal fee runs $3,750, which applicants describe as the least of their worries. Kofi Asante, who sells waffles built on a Ghanaian bofrot batter out of a shared Bushwick kitchen, is applying for the third time. "The first year I didn't get in, I cried," he said. "The second year I only almost cried. This year I have a business plan and a backup business plan."

Winners will be notified August 15. Brooks said the selection committee tastes everything and reads nothing about follower counts. "A perfect dumpling doesn't care how many likes you have," she said. The fall season opens the first weekend of October.