Food courts at the shopping mall are so 1980s. Today, it’s food halls that are trendy.
The Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco and Chelsea Market in New York are two of the most famous food halls, but there are dozens of similar venues — which offer an eclectic lineup of eateries in a casual, open setting — popping up all over the country.
Salt Lake City will get one later this year at The Gateway, officials announced Thursday.
SkinnyFats, a rapidly growing Las Vegas-based restaurant, will be the first of about 10 food vendors in a new food hall at the open-air shopping center.
The hall will open this fall and will be located at the south end of the downtown shopping center, where Urban Arts Gallery, Sunglass Hut, and The Happy Sumo were located, officials said. In addition to food, the hall will have a beer and wine bar.
The Gateway closed its food court more than a year ago to make way for Utah’s first Dave & Buster’s, which will open later this month. Since then, food trucks have been parked at the fountain weekdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. to feed workers in the area.
SkinnyFats features what it calls a healthy, “live happy” menu of bowls, tacos, hamburgers and sandwiches. It has a number of locations in Las Vegas, but The Gateway location will be its first outside of Nevada, company founder Reed Slobusky said in a news release.
“We’ve seen the SkinnyFats concept go over in such a big way in Las Vegas,” he said. “Now, we’re taking it to the next level by creating this cool, downtown food hall in Salt Lake City.”
MidiCi Neapolitan Pizza also is expected to open soon at the shopping center.
More dining options will be a necessity when the 300 employees of Recursion Pharmaceuticals, which uses artificial intelligence to make drug discoveries, moves to The Gateway.
Recursion, which has been working in University of Utah’s Research Park for the past four years, will move into the multistory space previously occupied by Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Kiln. Co-Working Space also will open soon, bringing additional bodies that need food.
