These Are The Newest Food Halls You Need To Visit
Food halls have enjoyed a popular resurgence in popular food culture. While places like Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market, Seattle's Pikes Place Market and San Francisco's Ferry Building have long been the flag bearers for US food halls, new players are redefining the category. Here is a look at new food halls that you may not have heard about, but need to visit immediately.
Image Credit: Agustin Kitchen
More reminiscent of a Southwest version of Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market, Mercado San Agustin opened in 2010 and features a mix of both locally-owned restaurants and retail stores that line an old-world, central outdoor courtyard.
Image Credit: Stella Java
Merchants include everything from a bakery selling traditional Mexican pastries, to a pastello serving tres leches, a full-service bike shop, a farm-to-table restaurant and even a store that sells traditional southwest moccasins. The building also features a 1,300 square foot commissary called Mercado Kitchen made available to support local, emerging culinary businesses as well as a separate commercial cannery facility called The Cannery. Serving as a true resource for the local entrepreneurial ecosystem, Mercado San Agustin also established the Mercado San Agustin Philanthropic Fund to help fund and provide educational resources for new business owners.
Agustin Kitchen
The food hall is located in the newly developed Mercado ‘historic’ District of Menlo Park, a master planned mixed-use neighborhood centered around a Tucson Modern Streetcar station. Mercado District incorporates traditional city-building concepts (minimal setbacks, tree-lined streets, mixed use zoning and all made possible through a streamlined permitting process governed by a form-based code) with modern interpretations of historically-sensitive adaptions of Sonoran Row Houses, Mexical Colonial abodes and Industrial Loft style homes. The neighborhood is a transit-oriented development that is liked to the University of Arizona Medical Center, Main Gate Square and Downtown through the 3.9 mile Tucson Modern Streetcar.