The restaurant industry is constantly evolving to meet shifting consumer preferences and market trends. In recent years, one of the most noteworthy trends has been the rise of food halls—dynamic spaces where diverse culinary concepts converge under one roof. These venues offer a unique dining experience, blending variety, quality, and convenience, which continues to attract foodies and casual diners alike.
This surge in popularity aligns with broader changes in the industry. Online food delivery revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate of 8.29%, resulting in a projected market volume of $466.5 billion by 2026, as takeout, delivery, and hybrid dining models remain in high demand. Meanwhile, restaurant owners are finding innovative ways to diversify revenue streams, from operating ghost kitchens to embracing communal dining spaces like food halls.
Food halls, in particular, are becoming a staple in urban centers and beyond, providing opportunities for small businesses, independent chefs, and startups to reach new audiences. Whether you're a restaurateur looking to expand or a curious foodie exploring fresh dining concepts, food halls are reshaping how we enjoy and experience food.
What is a Food Hall?
With the rise in the popularity of food halls, it leaves many restauranteurs and diners wondering, what is a food hall? While the name may sound similar, it's important to point out that food halls are not the same thing as a mall food court. While food courts in shopping malls primarily focus on large fast-food chains, a food hall is a marketplace that contains local mini-restaurants, assorted food shops and vendors, and even services like a butcher shop. Everything from a food hall menu is generally prepared fresh to order as well, and they may even feature live entertainment for diners.
The rise in popularity for food halls is comparable to the rise of food trucks in the late 2000s, when customers were trying to move away from large fast-food chains and support local eateries, while also receiving fresh (and possibly healthier) food.
Food halls are also popular with entrepreneurs who aspire to become restaurant owners since the startup costs to get involved with one are significantly less than constructing or renting your own brick-and-mortar restaurant.
The landlords of food halls also generally provide the equipment you'll need to run your stand, making the daily work in a stand similar to that of a ghost kitchen, although halls will serve dine-in customers in addition to filling takeout and delivery orders.
Why have food halls become so popular?
While they were once a bit of a rarity, food halls are now appearing in U.S. cities like Nashville, Raleigh, D.C., and San Francisco at a rapid pace. There are a few good reasons for their rise in popularity. As mentioned, it's comparable to the popularity of food trucks in the late 2000s. Customers have a long-standing desire to break away from fast-food chains and embrace local, and possibly healthier, options. Food trucks also gave customers ways to support their communities and socially interact, two things that are now possible at food halls.
Of course, there's also the fact that a food hall makes it easy to take your family or a group of friends out to eat and find options that suit everyone while still eating in the same place. You can get an appetizer from a Mexican stand, choose an entree from a seafood stand, and wash it all down with craft beer from yet another stand if you want. Once you're done with all that, you can even swing by a bakery for some dessert. It's also easy for customers to get their food to go, and some food hall vendors even offer delivery through an online order system.
Food halls are also great for restaurant owners. They tend to have shorter operating hours compared to traditional restaurants, and the smaller location means that you'll have fewer house staff to manage. You'll also have significantly lower start-up costs since there's no need to invest in your own building.
If you think working in a food hall may be the best option for you, here are 8 tips to help make your venture a success.
8 Tips for a Successful Food Hall
1. Choose your operating method
There are two basic food hall business models when it comes to how you want to run your operation.
The first is a multi-vendor food hall. These food halls connect buyers with multiple food vendors in the same location, and they generally have the advantage of providing more options.
The second type of food hall business model is a true tenant operation. These food halls still have multiple restaurant stands, but they're all operated by the same vendor. Advantages of this option include the fact that a single vendor is more likely to have their menu management under control, and it may be easier to file your documentation for a single tenant food hall for the tax year.
2. Install a restaurant point of sale system
A POS (point of sale system) is important for any business that sells products, and it's hard to overstate the particular importance of a restaurant POS. It's easy to confuse these systems with a retail POS system, which would be equipped with a cash drawer, credit card and debit card reader, customer-facing display, barcode scanner, and more.
A restaurant POS will be equipped with many of the same functionalities, but it will also include an online food ordering system. All orders will go through the POS, which will automatically create tickets for the kitchen, dramatically cutting down on order errors.
This is just scratching the surface of the true value of a POS system, however.
They track everything from sales and payroll to your most popular menu items and most used ingredients. If your quesadillas are extremely popular, for example, your POS will let you know, and you'll have incentives to stress them on your online menu and in your on-location menu as well. You can even use your restaurant POS system to collect customer data, which makes it easier to provide high-quality customer support. You can save a customer's favorite orders in your system and expedite their ordering process the next time they use your restaurant online ordering system.
Quick access to customer data also makes it easier to create lists for things like email marketing campaigns, and you can even contact your best customers about promotions that might interest them, coupons and discounts, or even enroll them in customer loyalty programs.
3. Combine your delivery platforms
To keep up with the high demand for food delivery in your food hall, there's a good chance you'll be working mobile ordering apps into your online ordering system. Such mobile apps may include Grubhub, DoorDash, Uber Eats, Seamless, or more. A potential downside of working with these food delivery apps is that each one comes with a separate tablet and managing these interfaces separately can become a full time job.
With Cuboh, you’ll be able to consolidate all of these apps into one single interface where you can update menu items, business hours and more. Forget tablet chaos and manually re-entering orders, create a seamless and efficient ordering process that saves time, reduces errors, and improves the customer experience.
4. Optimize each menu to your advantage
A big advantage of setting up in a food hall is that you'll be getting consistent foot traffic, in addition to the online orders you get on your own website or through apps, so there are plenty of opportunities to earn profits. In order to entice as many customers as possible, you'll want to draw attention to your stand and use your menu to your advantage. Consider posting QR codes on your stand or on your in-person menu that customers can scan to get special offers or access to newsletters. Customer experiences in your hall can all make great stories to share on your social media pages as well, so this helps take care of your digital marketing.
You'll want to follow best practices for online menus also, such as emphasizing your most popular items, limiting your online selection to about 20 items, and optimizing your restaurant website for mobile-friendliness, so it's easy for customers to make an order when they find you in local search results.
5. Select your branding type
Once you know how you want your food stands to be operated, you'll need to think about your food hall brand identity. There are four major brand types for food halls, and each one can cater to a different target audience.
General marketplace: This is a common type of food hall that provides customers with a wide variety of shopping options. In addition to traditional restaurant stands, customers may find beverage stands, bakeries, farmer's markets, or even bars. It's the food hall that has something for everyone.
Incubators: These food halls focus on startup incubators for new restaurants and ideas. Kitchen incubators have become especially popular for launching plant-based food products, and an incubator food hall is a great way to introduce customers to new twists on familiar favorites.
Convenience market: These food halls focus on providing customers with the ultimate convenience and tend to compete directly with fast-food chains in the community. Convenience food halls are more likely to have stands that operate as ghost kitchens or specialize in online ordering options like pickup and food delivery.
Community food halls: Community halls, as the name suggests, are focused exclusively on offering food options from the local community. Here, you'll find plenty of independent restaurants, markets, craft beer and wine stands, and anything else you'd hope to see from local food and drink options.
Whichever type of brand you go for will have a major effect on your promotions, marketing tools approach, and any restaurant website you launch.
6. Design with your audience in mind
This is similar to your brand approach, but you'll want to think carefully about the physical layout and design of your food hall. How much space will you need to host your community? Do you want your food hall to have a uniform style, or do you plan to let restaurant owners design their own stands? Similarly, will each of the restaurant operators handle their own marketing campaigns, or do you want to try an overall campaign for the entire hall?
You may also want to work directly with restaurant team members at your food hall to decide how to represent the overall brand on social media and on their restaurant's website since all of these things can influence customers and affect monthly sales. If you want to take things a step further with stands that have online ordering functions, you might even help guide them on how to make deeper connections with customers and build customer relationships.
Food Hall FAQs
What is a Food Hall?
A food hall is a communal dining space that brings together a variety of food and beverage vendors under one roof. Food halls emphasize high-quality, freshly prepared food from local or independent vendors. They often offer unique dining experiences, live entertainment, and shared seating areas.
What is a Food Hall vs. a Food Court?
While food halls and food courts may seem similar, they serve different purposes and audiences. Food courts are typically found in shopping malls and feature fast-food chains offering quick, standardized meals. In contrast, food halls focus on curated, artisanal offerings, often prepared fresh to order by local chefs or small businesses.
What Makes a Good Food Hall?
A good food hall combines diverse, high-quality food options with a welcoming atmosphere. It supports local or independent vendors, ensuring variety and uniqueness, while offering a mix of cuisines to suit a wide range of tastes. Additionally, a good food hall fosters a sense of community by creating spaces for social interaction and collaboration.
Why Are Food Halls So Popular?
Food halls are popular because they cater to modern dining preferences for variety, quality, and convenience. They offer something for everyone, making them ideal for groups with diverse tastes. Diners enjoy supporting local businesses, exploring unique culinary offerings, and experiencing the vibrant atmosphere food halls provide. For restaurant owners, food halls present a cost-effective way to reach new customers with lower startup costs, shared resources, and built-in foot traffic.
If you're interested in getting into the restaurant industry, don't let the convenience and popularity of food halls pass you by. They're a great investment for those looking for ways to grow with their community, and restaurants of all sizes will want to get involved.
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