New experience-focused places, from food halls with live music to pickleball courts with multiple cafes, serve sizzle along with sustenance.
In its 2026 Design Forecast, renowned international architecture firm Gensler identified megatrends it believes will dominate new-build and renovation projects globally this year.
Its No. 1 trend: “Experience becomes the true measure of real estate value.”
Also on trend: “New uses for existing space types shape a changing urban blueprint.” Gensler architects declare that “Immersive experiences such as mixed-use lifestyle districts draw people because of the emotions they inspire and the stories they tell.” One way to create immersive experiences, Gensler believes, is the transformation of built spaces that have outlived their original purpose. “The next wave of city design blurs the boundaries between culture, commerce, infrastructure and community. Stadiums become stages for civic life, transit hubs are also exhibition spaces and entertainment venues, and retrofitted malls become universities and community hubs,” the forecast states.
As part of a $190 million renovation of the Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee, the third floor underwent a complete transformation, including its foodservice venues. Among them are food-truck-inspired Street Eatz, a global street-foods concept, and Cream City Coffee Co., which offers coffees and coffee cocktails, pastries and sandwiches. Photos courtesy of Rippe Associates, photos by Zach Benson
In a rapidly transforming world, it makes perfect sense. Changing patterns in how and where people work, eat, relax, shop and live mean that foodservice spaces offering something more — including those in buildings that have morphed from their original purpose — can present attractive opportunities for restaurateurs and property managers.
“Providing a unique experience beyond just food to attract all demographics of customers, including families, has been a big trend,” says Phillip Landgraf, FCSI, executive principal of Ricca Design Studios. Some examples he cites: “live music; live podcasting booths; indoor/outdoor recreation such as bocce ball or driving ranges; food halls centered around recreational activities such as pickleball, bowling or golf simulators; and unique concepts like Cosm [a technology company delivering immersive experiences for sports and entertainment], where fans watch concerts or sporting events on a big screen, almost like being at the game.”
The Future of Food Halls
Food halls — large spaces, often reclaimed square footage in historic buildings, featuring local restaurants, bars and sometimes shops — have evolved significantly in recent years. The 25,000-sq.-ft. Hayden Hall opened in early 2020 in “Big Red,” the brightly painted 1970s-era International Style skyscraper in the Chicago Loop, but soon fell victim to the lockdowns brought forth by the COVID pandemic. Four years later, franchisor and operator Craveworthy Brands reopened it as a more casual version of the original concept. While earlier food halls, including the original Hayden Hall, differentiated themselves with local chefs and eateries, the newly remodeled space highlights multiunit concepts in the Craveworthy portfolio.
“We thought the best way to build our brands was to bring unique, smaller concepts under one roof,” explains Gregg Majewski, Craveworthy Brands’ founder. “Most food halls rent out restaurant spaces to different people, but at Hayden Hall, we own all of them, so we don’t care which one consumers choose.” Hayden Hall features seven brands; coming up is a new full-service restaurant that will flip to a high-end gastropub after 5 p.m. “We rotate concepts in and out,” he says. “We can see what’s working, do different things, test products and push the envelope.”
In addition to Hayden Hall, the Craveworthy Brands portfolio includes Craveworthy Kitchen in Chicago; a food hall in Atlanta is also in development. The company also has plans to take the food-hall format to other foodservice sectors. “We’re actively pursuing campuses, airports and other spaces where we can maximize the value of the footprint and drive traffic by offering dining and games,” Majewski says. “In an airport, it would be awesome to take one of the bigger restaurant spaces, put in five brands rather than one, offer incredible food and an incredible environment, get four times the volume, and get diners in and out faster. We might go into a former factory in a dense area and offer an entertainment-driven food hall with active sports. We may look at endcap malls to make them gaming experience centers.”
When franchisor and restaurant operator Craveworthy Brands reopened Hayden Hall, the second-floor food hall in the iconic Big Red office building in Chicago, it installed its own small chains rather than local independent concepts; the company utilizes the outlets to test the appeal of new menu items. Photo courtesy of Craveworthy Brands
Renaud Consulting is a commercial real estate company with a food hall management division directed by senior vice president Nick Alevrogiannis. It currently operates two Washington, D.C., food halls: Western Market in the city’s northwest and the Bevy Food Hall in the Northeast’s Bryant Street Market, a mixed-use development with a movie theater, apartments and community services. Renaud recently shuttered its Mt. Vernon Marketplace in Baltimore; Alevrogiannis says reduced tenancy in nearby office buildings led to the closing.
“All food halls need high traffic,” Alevrogiannis says. “Each vendor requires a certain level of traffic to be profitable — you might need 1,200 to 3,000 customers a day.” Traffic and sales will differ from concept to concept, he says, with burger and pizza concepts inevitably getting “the lion’s share” of customers.
Yet the right food-hall restaurant, properly run and well marketed, can be significantly cheaper to operate than a stand-alone eatery, Alevrogiannis says. “You’re leasing everything in the building from the roof on down, you probably won’t have servers, and the menu will focus on your core menu items only, so you don’t have a million things to worry about every day,” he explains. “That opens up new opportunities for food truck proprietors, farmers’ market vendors — any type of restaurateur.”
Alevrogiannis is betting on strong growth for food halls outside the core city. “Suburbs are getting busier,” he says, “so you’ll see more food halls popping up. They can work well in a food desert or as part of a mixed-use retail project if you have strong local operators, the building owners and tenants put in enough investment, and the branding and marketing are right.”
Food halls in urban settings often have one advantage over their suburban counterparts. “Suburban stand-alone food halls don’t have built-in density around them, so to be successful, you do need to activate them — Tuesday night trivia contests, Wednesday bingo, Thursday karaoke, live music on Friday and Saturday — so that there’s always something going on,” Alevrogiannis notes.
Adaptive-reuse food halls in historic buildings can also be part of mixed-use reimaginings. For instance, Ricca is partnering on a renovation of the Aspen Armory, an 18,000-square foot landmark building in the ski resort town of Aspen, Colo., constructed in 1892. The remodeled structure will include community meeting spaces of various sizes, a visitor center, and an all-electric food hall with multiple kitchens, retail kiosks, a central bar, a lounge area and a game room.
In a former warehouse in Charlotte, N.C., a large primary bar became a focal point of the Rally Pickleball entertainment complex.
New Foodservice Formats
On-site foodservice operators see the benefit of the food hall, too. “We’re incorporating food-hall options in facilities from casinos to corporate buildings to wellness centers,” says Matthew Anderson, FCSI, associate principal at Rippe Associates and leader of the firm’s hospitality design team. “All of the operations are looking for an experience within the experience — some form of uniqueness beyond their main focus. Perhaps it’s an escape, or a sense of normalcy, or an amenity that differentiates. In themed entertainment, it’s about giving the guest a reason to stay longer. Parents may not really like amusement parks, but they’re eating good food and listening to music while their kids are sampling the rides.”
Landgraf zeroes in on “a growing trend of sports arenas and stadiums expanding into mixed-use districts featuring a variety of opportunities for entertainment, dining and living.” In Florida, Ricca is supervising foodservice components of the $1.4 billion Stadium of the Future joint project between the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team and the city of Jacksonville. It will give EverBank Stadium a new canopy, wider concourses and enhanced amenities, including 190 new food and beverage points of sale. “We have large market-style concession food halls, with multiple food offerings grouped together and centralized self-checkout stations,” Landgraf explains. The new facility is expected to open in 2028, with local restaurant operators highlighted in the expanded dining areas. The owners and the city expect the new stadium and its enhanced amenities to draw more concerts, festivals and sporting events beyond football.
“My experience with stadium dining has been the addition of spaces that can be used on a year-round basis and not just on game day, whether it’s an elevated club space or a street-level-accessible space for the general public,” says Bob Jacobs, FCSI, design principal at Culinary Advisors. His company’s recent work on food and beverage additions for the $400-plus million upgrade of M&T Bank Stadium, where the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens play, includes “two areas recently added at street level: a two-level expansive bar and beer garden, as well as a two-level food hall and bar adjacent to an outdoor entertainment stage.”
: A display oven, tiled in Rally Pickleball’s signature bright yellow, is the focal point of the pizza cafe in the main building. Photos courtesy of Culinary Advisors, photo by Amanda Anderson
Facilities for active sports also offer opportunities for multiple foodservice venues. Kelsey Kettner, FCSI, a project manager at Culinary Advisors, was the lead foodservice consultant for the 27,000-sq.-ft. Rally Pickleball Entertainment Complex that opened in June 2023 in Charlotte, N.C. “Our clients planned to build indoor pickleball courts in a warehouse space, but when the building next door became available, they expanded the project to two buildings with outdoor pickleball courts in between,” she explains. “We wanted touchpoints in each building for the ‘really good, chef-driven’ food and drinks our clients were looking for.”
For the former warehouse, Kettner’s team designed a pizza cafe with a bright yellow-tiled display oven — its color a nod to Rally Pickleball branding — as well as dough-tossing and pie assembly done in front of customers. In the same building are a large bar and a coffee shop. Though adjacent, all three have their own seating areas, including outdoor seating for the bar. All are accessible from the street, drawing people who “come from the neighborhood to get coffee but not to play pickleball,” Kettner says. There’s also a walk-up window for patrons who want to order street food or burgers to take outdoors, where there’s lounge seating around the pickleball courts and other outdoor games. Players can also order food to be delivered courtside. Server stations are dispersed around the outdoor area. In the annex building is the full-service bistro, Henrietta’s, with a seasonal menu curated by Michelin-recommended chef Andres Kaifer. It has its own bar with counter seating, as well as capacity for private dining in either the main dining room or a semiprivate Nest area.
The kitchen links the two buildings, serving both the more casual foodservice outlets in the main structure and the more formal restaurant in the annex. “We were trying to make the two buildings feel connected and trying not to overbuild the foodservice facilities,” Kettner explains. “We wanted more seating, more fun activities, less kitchen.”
The Northstar Center in downtown Minneapolis, built in 1963 and reopened after a major renovation in 2025, is designed to accommodate the hybrid work era, with move-in-ready furnished Skybox offices, a 9-hole indoor golf course, a two-story bar, a fitness center and public meeting and event venues. Ground-floor food options include the Walkin’ Dog casual hot-dog eatery and a retro Northstar General Store. Photos courtesy of Rippe Associates, photos by Anthony Tahlier
Simplifying Complexity
Kettner is just one consultant who says multiuse equipment is the key to diversified food production from a small kitchen. “There are new combis with multiuse features, like smoking capabilities,” she notes. “New skillets can do a lot of cool things; some have pasta baskets that tilt easily.” She also mentions efficiencies created by new technology, such as mobile phone tech that tells patrons when their food is ready, eliminating the need for pagers.
Anderson recommends “not choosing equipment specific to a certain type of cooking.” Operators can use a flattop griddle, either in the central kitchen or in the individual concept, for tacos, quesadillas, stir-fries, sautes, burgers or egg dishes, he notes, or it can serve as a warm holding area for foods in a pan. But his favorite example of versatile equipment is the double-sided clamshell grill. “It doesn’t require skilled labor; a staff member can push a button and the top comes down,” he says. “You can program it for a smash burger or with just enough pressure to do a chicken breast — basically the level of pressure to execute whatever product you’re cooking.”
When it comes to equipment for a food-hall kitchen, Majewski declares himself “as old-fashioned as you can possibly be,” adding, “When you make almost everything from scratch, the traditional way is still the right way. We have no speed ovens.” Hayden Hall has a single back kitchen, where staff prep everything that will be stocked for the individual bays each day. For both dry storage and cold storage, each concept has its own locker. The front of house is tech-forward, with kiosks at every station. Although each counter is set up as a distinct restaurant, customers can order any item from any concept, and it’s routed to the right places for preparation and serving.
Photos courtesy of Rippe Associates, photos by Anthony Tahlier
Of course, infrastructure is the first consideration before equipment can be specified. Older buildings, in particular, can be problematic. “There can be challenges: removal of hazardous materials such as asbestos, deteriorating building infrastructure such as plumbing and electric lines, and building finishes such as lead-based paint,” Jacobs points out.
Alevrogiannis stresses the importance of ventilation in historic buildings. For a multistory building, a food hall may require venting shafts with scrubbers. And “for buildings with 10 stories above the food hall, you may have offices where you can’t have penetration for venting. In that area, you can do an ice cream shop or a flower shop.” He says he “would love to have a 10- or 12-foot grease hood in every location.” But the reality, he says, is that “NSF-certified ventless hoods that aren’t attached to mechanical service in the building can do everything — every menu in every concept.”
Technological advances have also changed food halls.
Landgraf notes that “mobile ordering, kiosk-based operations, app-based ordering and GPS-enabled systems allow patrons to order from multiple vendors in a single transaction — perhaps from their seat without having to stand in line — and facilitate groups splitting checks.”
Jacobs calls out point-of-sale innovations, including cashier-less systems that rely on cameras and shelf sensors, and a new AI-based system that identifies packaged items at checkout after they have received 3D scans of their dimensions.
Landgraf notes that self-serve beer/wine/cocktail stations have become very popular —but, he says, they may be hazardous for some consumers even as they’re profitable for operators. “These sell by the ounce, so prices can be deceiving,” he explains. “I’ve been caught with some rather shocking bills more than once.”
