Creating An Outdoor Food Court For Your Shopping Center

Outdoor shopping centers offer a fun way for customers to spend the day shopping without feeling like they are stuck indoors. One thing to consider is to make sure that there is a space for customers to sit down and enjoy a meal. While indoor malls typically have food courts, it may be a bit more difficult to create this space in an outdoor shopping center. Fortunately, there are a few ways you can create a central dining area in your shopping mall. Here are a few details to consider for this addition to your mall.

Build A Pavilion

One challenge for creating an outdoor dining area is dealing with the weather. Adding a large pavilion in the center of the food court provides shelter from hot the hot sun and occasional rainstorms. You'll want to have your contractors create covered walkways that lead to the pavilion so customers can use to carry food from restaurants to the seating area. The pavilion should have half-walls around the border to help parents with small children keep them safely in the dining area. Install lighting in the roof to illuminate the area for nighttime dining.

Set Up Covered Tables

Setting up tables with umbrellas throughout the dining area provides additional options for busy dining periods or for groups that prefer to have their own private dining areas away from the pavilion. Work with restaurants in your shopping center to sponser the umbrellas by putting their business names and logos on them. This provides a convenient option for advertising their businesses.

Add Food Kiosks

If your mall is already built and established, you may not already have the restaurants set up in a central location. To overcome this obstacle without asking each tenant to move to a new space in the mall, consider adding food kiosks to the food court for each restaurant. These kiosks can make it easy for restaurants to serve food to customers during meal rush periods. The kiosks can be closed outside of lunch and dinner, or they can be kept open throughout the day. You can also work with local food truck businesses to bring new food options into the mall by letting them use the kiosks.

Work with the existing restaurants in your shopping mall and your contractor to create a welcoming space for customers to enjoy while eating a meal in your new outdoor food court.