Food halls: the new face of casual dining

This article first appeared on MCA online on August 28 2019

Opinion piece by Leo Feldman, Partner at Shelley Sandzer.

In the midst of the turbulent UK casual dining scene, a regenerated century-old concept is providing much-needed certainty for the trade triumvirate: consumer, operator, and landlord. Once an out-dated practical option, food halls now represent a metropolis of best in class operators, possessing all the tools needed to make a success of a new wave of bricks and mortar eateries, in the face of the Deliveroo generation. 

There has been a clear shift in demand away from large 150 cover plus restaurants in the capital. The usual suspects weighing this type of operation down are huge fit-out costs, enormous business rates involved and, above all, uncertainty in the market. Landlords are finding these large empty units increasingly arduous to market, unless the spaces are really something special. Food halls are one of today’s best options for filling these anchor spaces, providing landlords with the flexibility that a large single-cuisine restaurant cannot. 

The multi-dimensional concept is beneficial for the landlord in a market where driving footfall to estates and schemes is key to the success of a portfolio, and also for the operator who gets an opportunity with much lower risk. The food hall soaks up many of the initial operational costs faced before revenues start to come in – from the fit-out of the kitchen to the dining space and waiting staff. It gives operators the scope to build their brand within a safety net; one which allows them relief from the facets which often bring jeopardy to a dining brand making its first steps in the market or trialling a new concept. There is also a lack of prime high-footfall units available for emerging traders to launch in alone, but the food hall renders those spaces possible for a small brand, by exposing them to a high traffic destination and allowing them a slice of a wider consumer pool. 

Food halls act as an incubator for vendors, giving them the testing grounds to trial their dishes while allowing the food hall brand to harvest intelligence on consumer demand. Operators fostered under a food hall’s wing that go on to success as a standalone operator feed reputation back into the food hall brand, strengthening its status as a market leader and nurturer of dining businesses. The individual operators within a food hall or market will rotate over a period of time as some operators will move on to open their own sites, leaving space for others to trial either new concepts or smaller more streamlined versions of established brands. As well as acting as an incubator for young businesses, food halls can also be a suitable safety net for brands who were operating in bricks and mortar sites which haven’t garnered much success – Monty’s Deli for example have shifted their focus to the shared food hall space; following success at Market Halls Victoria they are set to launch in September at the forthcoming Seven Dials Market by KERB. 

Crucially, the customer loves it. The varied offer creates an environment for the modern consumer to dine in large parties where everyone can have something that suits individual taste, safe in the knowledge it has come from an operator specialising in that cuisine. The possibilities are endless. Food halls can be a space for corporate lunches, relaxed soirees, or family outings, and can even incorporate retail or create events and experiences. The food hall is also an ideal platform for international brands wanting to make their mark in the UK, with its relatively low costs and risk, further enhancing the experience for the consumer as it becomes a target destination for trying new and exciting cuisines.

Different food hall operators have tried to capture different markets, and while there is room for many of these venues throughout a city, it’s important to ensure that each venue has a point of difference. The very nature of the food hall is giving the customer variety and choice. Customers who visit Kerb or Street Feast’s Giant Robot are likely to have a very different experience to those visiting Eataly or Bang Bang Oriental. An excellent example of an adapted food hall concept is the recently opened Arcade Food Theatre, with its debut site secured by Shelley Sandzer earlier this year in central London. Arcade Food Theatre is an evolution of food halls – they have set the bar in modernising this increasingly popular movement in eating out. Once a bus terminal beneath the iconic Centre Point building by Tottenham Court Road Tube station, it is now a stylish plaza with food and drink from morning to night. The foodie paradise is home to a range of cuisines – from sushi to tacos to pasta – amongst state-of-the-art interiors and a magnetising atmosphere. 

Arcade Food Theatre embodies the shift towards a food hall platform in London, developing on the success of the likes of Market Halls and Boxpark; and the mutual benefits for landlords, operators, and consumers suggest this is the model to revitalise the dining market across the UK.