I feel like malls have potential as massive culinary incubators, with the tired chain clothes store replaced with massive arrays of experimental restaurants and bars. This is anecdotal, but every 1-2 weeks I go to a mall I work near for lunch, yet for the two years I have been doing this I have yet to purchase any non-food merchandise (though I got close when browsing one of the bookstores).
I could get behind this. But it has to be different from current mall fare. I hate chain restaurants. Food courts tend to be sandwiches or fried crap passed off as ethnic.
When I lived in Boston there was a place in Chinatown called the Eatery. When you walked into the main room it had probably 15 different stalls, all with different types of Asian food. Everything was made to order. A mall converted into something like that I could get behind.
Sorry to say, the restaurants you despise are there because most people prefer them. There are fancy malls with fancy food courts for rich people, like Seattle Armory.
People in the US prefer inexpensive. They have a certain price point they don't want to go beyond. The Eatery I described was as far from "fancy" as possible. Dishes were under $10 and were rich in vegetable and protein content. They were also very flavorful. Eating flavorful food does not make it "fancy".
How fast food proliferated in the US goes beyond "fancy"/"not fancy".
Food trucks locally have acted as incubators for restaurant ideas. If successful then they open a restaurant.
I like the idea of a restaurant incubator much better. People could start out real small, maybe rent out a dining room for a single night each week. Have a big kitchen that could support multiple dining rooms.
Instead as the large department stores close locally we're getting go kart tracks, mini water parks and other kid attractions.
