After reading about the restaurant changes at the Palms in a Today’s News entry on your website, what is a "food hall concept"?
A food hall, in the U.S., is an upscale food court that’s not associated with a shopping mall or, until recently, a casino.
In Europe and Great Britain, food halls are large sections of department stores, while in South America, they’re integrated into public markets, often on the second floor of large produce and dry-goods mercados.
In the U.S., food halls are hitting it big, with as many as 150 new food halls predicted to open in the next few years. A number of them have already revitalized historic buildings and underused urban spaces or are planned to, such as the Ferry Building in San Francisco, the Cigar Factory in Charleston (SC), and Ponce City Market in Atlanta. Rather than the tired old Sbarro, KFC, Panda Express, and Hot Dog on a Stick food court, food halls are touted as community gathering places, often offering independent food purveyors and small startup businesses spaces to try out their ideas.
Food halls tend to attract upper-crust urban Millennials who eschew the fast-food brands of food courts in favor of stylish buildings full of newly discovered restaurants, artisan products, and communal dining spaces.
Though the newish Forum Food Court at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas still refers to itself as such, it’s decidedly more upscale than the typical congregation of fast food in a mall—Smashburger, DiFara Pizza, Phillips Seafood, Earl of Sandwich, Tiger Wok and Ramen, La Gloria Mexican, and Romaine Empire.
Conversely, the Fulton Street Food Hall across the street at Harrah’s is the first to employ the new appellation, though it’s more like an “a la carte buffet” (VitalVegas.com’s apt description) where all the food comes out of the same kitchen and is sold at serving stations—soup and salad, pizza, sushi, noodles, sandwiches, frozen yogurt and gelato, bakery, and others—with most items around $10.
We’ll be very interested to see what the often-innovative Station Casinos comes up with for its food hall at the Palms.
