It’s a new concept, at least around here: medium-sized, indoor areas that feature around half-a-dozen restaurants in close proximity. Similar to a mall food court, except that some serve beer, wine, cocktails, etc. Two are near me: this one just opened in Piqua, Ohio, and features a large bar open bar in the center of it. And this one just opened in Springfield, Ohio. I like the concept. Will soon be visiting each.
I’m surprised that nobody has thought of opening a bar in the “food court” before. I can only assume that mall management would frown on it because of their “family-friendly” shopping experience. Also, having intoxicated shoppers doesn’t sound like such a good idea to me.
I think both of those are very good reasons why they haven’t.
Portland’s midtown food cart court has a brewpub on-site.
There aren’t any in my area that I am aware of, but I have been to a few in other cities. I can see the appeal – if you’re going out for a meal with a large group and can’t agree on a restaurant, you can just go to the food hall and everyone can get what they want.
Intoxicated shoppers buy a lot of random stuff. Amazon et al, live on drunk shopping. I’m sure most of the tenants would love that. The mall management itself, not so much.
A year or two ago, I was in Long Beach, California with co-workers. We were doing a project in the area. A couple of nights, we had dinner at a place called the Long Beach Exchange. Big building near the airport designed to look like an airport hangar with a variety of restaurants offering food (including a bar). I think the shared seating helps lower the operating cost for the restaurants themselves. And yes, everyone in your group can get something different but you can all sit and eat together.
And actually, it’s not a new concept. I remember visiting Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston decades ago.
There are a number of (relatively) new “food halls” in downtown Chicago, many of them in older/vintage office buildings, which largely feature local restaurants rather than the chains that one would find in traditional mall food courts.
Isn’t that just the old Piqua Mall location? My cousin mentioned checking it out for something different to do last Saturday and it didn’t sound appealing to me.
The malls where I live outside of Detroit already have places that serve alcohol, including the theaters. I don’t see people going there to get drunk, but then we have many more options. Maybe the draw is that it is getting cold outside and walking around an old mall with a drink is the new game in town. I’ve been drinking in Piqua, its pretty boring. That used to be a decent mall a long time ago.
These are pretty common in some Asian countries. Singapore in particular has built a big part of their food culture around them.
Hmmm. The closest I’ve seen locally are local bars (drinks only) that have a pair of rotating food trucks in their lots on a scheduled basis, normally 2-3 nights a week. Seems to work really well for both - keeps people going back and forth between drinks, stepping out for a semi-substantial meal (which they can eat in the bar) with more drinks, and then maybe over to the second food truck for another meal/snack and then back to the bar for a last drink drink to wash it all down.
There’s one in the basement of the New World Mall in Flushing, Queens, featuring the cuisines of a dozen or so Chinese provinces:
We have one of these, called I-Square, in Rochester. They’ve been running for about a decade now.
They have four restaurants, a bar, a coffee shop, and an ice cream stand that all share a common dining area. Like the OP described, it’s basically a mall food court, except without the rest of the mall.
The other Rochester also has a food hall named The Workshop. It also has four restaurants with burgers, pizza, chicken, etc., and a dessert/malt shop. There’s a full service bar as well.
Time Out Market has 13 locations around the world. They’re quite fun.
The model lets each restaurant operate as just about a take-out place, with almost nil front-of-house staffing. So you take a real restaurant kitchen and menu, but convert it to Chipotle style walk-up: order, carry your own food away, etc. For the customers there’s the corresponding reduction in pressure to tip for services not rendered that in effect gives a 10%+ discount over the sit-down version of the same order. But you still get to sit.
The sharing also means a pooling of excess seating. 10 separate restaurants each end up with lots of chairs never occupied. The same 10 sharing a single seating area can cut that excess down by 80% and still never run short.
With all the threads we’ve had on friends and co-workers with fussy palates, I genuinely wonder how many people actually manage to go out to eat these days in a group without drama.
Yes. IME you’re far less likely to encounter anything that looks like a fast food franchise. Or at least a mainstream well-known FFF.
Around here we had one of these open just at the opening acts of COVID. Oops. Anyhow, they staggered on until early 2022 then died. Damned shame. But while they were there it was a good fun experience.
This place was near a well-established multi-block “Restaurant Row” that was thriving long before and long after COVID. Still is, and in fact is still slowly growing. But this venue was a block-plus off to the side in the wrong direction. They were forced into that location since it was the only big box barn nearby. But IMO they were just far enough off the edge of the established fun zone that they were “out of sight out of mind” for most people. Oops^2.
It also wasn’t an area loaded with workers who’d create a built-in lunch crowd. Oops^3.
I’m not aware of any other similar attempts around here. Time for me to do some digging; I’m always up for a new and different eating venue. Does anyone know if there’s yet an industry accepted standard term for these things? IMO “food court” isn’t it.
Are you suggesting that I order stuff on Amazon while drunk?
I resemble that remark! 
I have, however, ordered many useful things from Amazon while under the mellow influence of Caesars, the prevailing philosophy in that state of mind being, “why not?”
As to food court type places, it depends very much on the location. I love my suburban neighbourhood and the nice shopping mall nearby, but the food court is predictably crappy. In the urban area where I used to live, there was a huge mall with a food court that had a lot of interesting variety with ethnically authentic food outlets, and it included an Asian place that had absolutely the best Pad Thai I’ve ever had! It was produced by a couple of Siamese (not cats, I shoulda used the modern term “Thais”) on a smoking-hot wok. Damn, that stuff was good!
I’ve been to a few of these over the years, and whilst I can see why large groups of young people gravitate towards them, I’m personally not a fan. Always seems like a scramble for tables, and without table service, there’s often used plates left around. Not conducive to a relaxing dining experience.
Food hall.
That’s what I call them and what I’m most used to hearing them called. As mentioned above, we have a handful of them here in Chicago that have mostly started showing up about a decade or so ago. (Though the French Market had been around for a little longer than that, 2009—I don’t remember the term “food hall” in popular usage to describe it as that back then. I don’t think it was until the Revival Food Hall in 2016(?) that I remember the term being established.) I’ve also seen this in Milwaukee over the last three years (3rd St Market Hall, although the public market also fulfills a similar purpose.) Plus a smattering of other cities or towns, though I can’t remember exactly which ones. I know there was one in Pennsylvania— maybe Harrisburg? Broad Street Market, I think. But that advertised itself as a market, so not a food hall in the purest sense, but there’s a good bit of overlap between the two. As far as I see, a market has both plenty of dining options, but also raw ingredients, cheeses, preserves, stuff like that, but a food hall is strictly prepared food.
They also represent an in-between opportunity. Around here, at least, a fair number of the businesses involved started out as food trucks that went semi-permanent. Some of the very successful ones go further on to open their own full service standalone places. Likewise, restaurants that want to expand but not necessarily want to deal with an additional full standalone site.