Rumble Feed

The Latest Financial and Crypto News Across the Globe

Malls Transform with Small Restaurant Chains and Global Cuisines, Extending Customer Stay Times

The trend of reinventing US malls has led to the replacement of traditional fast food chains with smaller, regional restaurant brands and global cuisines in response to a shift in consumer tastes. As anchor department stores leave malls, landlords are turning to emerging concepts such as Lazy Dog, Gen Korean BBQ, Postino Wine Café, Kura Revolving Sushi Bar, Puttshack, Topgolf and eatertainment venues that can extend the time people spend in a mall. These restaurants offer unique dining experiences with conveyer belt sushi delivery systems or rolling robots serving drinks while tableside monitors provide games, cartoons and toy prizes for big eaters. The food sector now takes up between 15% to 20% of the space in shopping centres compared to just 5% during the ’90s as mall landlords seek out tenants that can draw steady foot traffic and increase consumer dwell time, replacing some department stores’ former role. Some national chains like McDonald’s, Chick-Fil-A and TGI Fridays have closed their locations in shopping centres due to online sales growth or lower profitability from drive-thru models instead of sit-down restaurants in mall food courts being deemed less viable with less maintenance, fewer employees and better staffing flexibility. However, it remains too early for analysts to determine whether this shift will be sustainable over the long term as losing a big anchor eatery is still a significant blow for malls’ landlords.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *