Dining out is so much more than food on a plate – think street-labels, authentic flavours and eclectic food offers all amounting to memorable customer experiences. These are the key elements to develop the food and hospitality within our shopping centres and mixed-use developments, to cater to the needs of our growing cities, the spend potential of millennials and how food is a crucial anchor for many shopping centres.

Mall Developer’s recipe for success – The Key Ingredients? FOOD, HOSPITALITY, ENTERTAINMENT & BEAUTIFUL SPACES!

Shopping Centres are Living Centres, around the world. As Shopping centres are changing rapidly, food and hospitality is central to the business case, physical environments are crucial in creating the Centre’s Point of Difference (P.O.D.).

Food Halls are not just food courts in different guise.  They are new food destinations that are exciting consumers around the world by putting food, design and experience first.  These new dining meccas are all about hospitality - built on a strategy of the structure of traditional food courts and the success of Eataly and the great food markets of the world. All of this is informed by understanding the importance of modern biophilic design principles which are aimed at enhancing the well-being of users through “green-place” features.

In the changing retail landscape Neighbourhood shopping centres are facing competition from online shopping, high street food deliveries like Uber & Deliveroo, high street dining precinct and the inevitable introduction of smart casual/ family restaurants within the building footprint of stand-alone cinemas and other entertainment precincts.

Smart Casual and Family Dining precincts are no longer the BASTAN of the larger malls and retail precincts. The smaller malls are starting to recognise the many benefits of increasing the food GLA and the development of dining precincts. They want to include roof tops and dining lanes.

Francis Loughran’s projects and study tours take him far and wide in search of the best food and the best brands when it comes to food. Over the past few weeks Francis has been reviewing some of New Zealand’s newest and hippest new food designations; The Press Hall in Wellington’s CBD (80 Willis Street) and Queen’s Rise in Queen Street, central Auckland. Today, the focus here is on Wellington.

So far, 2018 has been the year of the fresh food market for Future Food. With a number of projects in the pipeline as well as a number recently completed including the Adelaide Central Market and Box Hill Central, we are seeing strong growth in this hospitality sector. The growth is sparking interest in market management and developers around the globe to reposition and reinvigorate existing markets to ride this growth or include market concepts in the masterplans of future developments.