Dunno about you, but buying roasted corn at a mall is delicious, and healthy, relatively.Title:Arlington, Texas-Area Malls Aim to Win over Shoppers' Palates
Authors:Shirley Jinkins
Source:Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX); 11/24/2002
Arlington, Texas-Area Malls Aim to Win over Shoppers' Palates
Nov. 24--ARLINGTON -- It's 4:45 p.m. on a Saturday, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. You are at a mall with three children under 10, your pregnant sister and 7,000 other Arlington residents.
All of you are hungry.
Believe it or not, this is just the sort of scenario for which mall managers plan, negotiate and strategize, but they must also plan for the midsummer weekday lunch hour.
Hometown Star staff members visited Arlington malls for lunch recently and found a wide range of food choices and atmospheres.
Here is what we found: The Parks at Arlington mall has just opened a huge new addition, which enlarged the existing second-level food court.
Six Flags Mall is beginning a yearlong expansion project on its food court.
Festival International Bazaar is promoting diversity in its food offerings as well as its shops.
"What we did, we took a step back and said, `Who is our customer?' " said April Irwin, marketing director for Six Flags Mall at 2911 E. Division St. The 30-year-old mall is renovating its food service areas and will be opening three new restaurants by Dec. 1.
The French Market will serve soups, salads, pastries and specialty coffees. Chicago's Taste & More will offer Chicago-style hot dogs with all the trimmings. Cakes & Pies, a pastry shop, will open in a food-court space being vacated by the Brass Bean.
Our visit to Six Flags Mall included a stop at a proven favorite, Italia Express, near the movie theatre. Their lunch special of a slice of pizza and a drink for $2.75 was both filling and frugal, and the pizza is cheesy and fragrant. The calzones for $3.75 were huge.
Irwin said mall food-court plans must consider three elements: seating, uniqueness of food vendors and nearby activities.
Seating areas should be well-lighted, accessible and plentiful, Irwin said, and food courts should be conveniently located near mall exits.
Small, child-friendly activities, such as arcades, should be near the court so slower-eating adults can finish meals while keeping an eye on their children.
"We don't want to duplicate the same food places over and over," Irwin said. "We think about what people ask for and versatility."
The French Market is attractive, Irwin said, because of its huge and varied menu. Chicago's Taste & More is a good choice because virtually everyone likes hot dogs.
"Kids can have plain ones, and adults can have a really great hot dog with all the trimmings," Irwin said.
The mall's free-standing restaurants, including Subway Sandwiches and El Chico's, attract sit-down diners, especially those who plan to attend a movie at the mall theater, Irwin said.
"We're in an industrial district, and there are not a lot of choices around us," Irwin said of the mall's regular lunch crowd of employees of nearby companies. "We're a logical destination, and that's why we're expanding."
Rohn Korman, manager at Festival International Bazaar at 2900 E. Pioneer Parkway, said shoppers at his east Arlington location are looking for variety.
"Everyone seems to enjoy the fact that we don't have a traditional food court," he said. The mall itself is nontraditional and multicultural, with a mix of shop spaces and a central bazaar-style shopping area with vendors' stalls.
The centerpiece of the mall's food offerings is a buffet adjacent to a couple of food-court spaces and a huge area of tables and chairs.
"We have a great Mexican buffet," Korman said, and indeed, the El Mexico de Mis Sabores takes up a full row of former food-court spaces, turning a corner and continuing down another row.
The $6.75 buffet is served from noon to closing Wednesdays through Sundays, Korman said.
"There are usually about seven different meats, rice and beans; they usually have a salad and a couple of desserts," Korman said. "And they have five different traditional Mexican punches made of flower petals."
Other food-court vendors include Burger King and the Round Rock Cafe, which serves Greek-style gyro ( pronounced "hero") sandwiches and chicken specialties.
The `Hometown Star' staff members' lunch consisted of tasty gyro sandwiches and a Philly cheese steak sub from Round Rock Cafe. The meats were tender and flavorful, cooked on the spot instead of rewarmed, and the breads were fresh and soft.
However, the Mexican buffet wasn't operational yet, although it was 1 p.m. on a Wednesday. Only hand-lettered signs marked off its territory in the food court.
Aesthetics count in mall cuisine, too.
The Parks at Arlington, 3811 S. Cooper St., made improvements to the second-floor food court along with the addition of a huge new wing to the mall.
There are still 13 food-court vendors, said Monica Vermea of The Parks' marketing department, but diners may think they're in a completely new space.
"The food court itself is newly painted, with new tables and chairs, and we added two new sections by the carousel," Vermea said.
Almost 500 new seats were added to the court, bringing available seating to 950.
"Basically, we doubled in size," Vermea said.
New to food-court shoppers this Christmas season at The Parks are Steak Escape, Sonic, Roman Delight pizza and pasta and Ninfa's Express ("a take-out version of our full-size Ninfa's," Vermea said.). A new Starbuck's, Pretzelmaker/TCBY and Haagen-Dazs have opened on the second floor beyond the food court.
Most of the action is at the back of the food court, near two new spectacular attractions: a full-size indoor carousel and a National Hockey League-size ice rink. That's where the `Hometown Star' crew sat for our review, picking out our favorite animals on the carousel (the long-eared rabbit and the yellow cat with a fish in its mouth were our top choices).
Foodwise it's hard to beat our choice of the Cajun Cafe's wonderful bourbon chicken with rice, steamed vegetables and an egg roll for under $5, although our colleagues enjoyed their fajitas and a taco salad from Ninfa's Express.
The Parks can't be beaten for people-watching, particularly if you're by the carousel or ice rink. The new food-court furniture, with cheery laminated wildflower photography on the tabletops, has more of a restaurant feel than the plastic stuff before.
Standing choices Malls must also plan for food service in addition to sit-down restaurants and food-court areas.
"Shoppers look for unusual things like impulse purchases," Irwin said of Six Flags Mall's snack spots such as the new Dippin Dots, joining Pretzels Etc.
Korman said Festival mall's cart vendors are very popular with shoppers. The carts are rolled throughout the mall during the day.
"Our fresh fruit vendor cuts up the fruit right in front of you and serves it to you," Korman said. The fruit, mostly regionally grown produce, comes from a large farmer's market in the west end of the mall where fruit and vegetables can be bought in bulk.
Roasted ears of corn are also sold from carts, and a pastry cart purveys sweets to shoppers.
"I try to pick and choose the food vendors," Korman said, adding that shoppers seem to enjoy both the mobile food and the sit-down dinners.
"Sometimes there's a real rush on the buffet, then other times it's a rush on the roasted corn or the pastry carts," Korman said. "It's sometimes unpredictable."
