The Food Hall Epidemic

Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe! Lets talk about food halls: how do they affect our cities, and why should we care? Let me know what you think down below 👇

Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:50 What is the modern food hall? + Epic PCM tour
1:55 Context, small business, food trucks, community space
3:52 The problem, Sweet Auburn Market, Edgewood Ave
6:02 Priced out & subsidization
7:31 Concluding

Sources

Stock Footage

Social Media
Youtube - @nathandaven

Music (Youtube Creator Music)
Live and Direct - Silent Partner
Dub Eastern - Kevin MacLeod
La Danse Fetish de Femme - The Mini Vandals featuring Mamadou Koita and Lasso

Equipment
Camera: Fuji X-E4, iPhone XS
Microphone: RODE Wireless Go

#urbanplanning #cityplanning #urbanism

[nathandaven]

I branched out a bit on the filmaking here and it was wayyy more fun to make! So expect more like this in the future! Thanks for watching 😄

[indigoWavves]

I like to think the food hall epidemic (in ATL) is a lot of people's intro into liking walkable environments. Unfortunately, we're still at the "Drive to urbanism/density phase"

[razkrunk]

The real lack of a street food culture in most of the US contributes to food halls being the most economical place for small businesses to get started hawking food.

[stevevarholy]

The "Food Hall" is the 2024 name for a Food Court.

[issatoral]

I'm from New Jersey and recently moved to ATL. I was surprised at how many food halls ATL has but I love them so much because im such a foodie. I feel like there are few places in ATL where you can be walking around other than midtown so these food halls make it one stop shop and hubs for people to hangout. Other than Chelsea Market in NYC I haven't been to a city that has so many food halls.

[chroniclesofshylles]

Very informative and highlights potential decisions our communities should be aware of for promoting change. Glad to see the Curb market featured as well.

[cameronpratt]

Just found your channel, really detailed and well thought out stuff. Always loved visiting Atlanta but it is great to learn more about the city.

[middleagebrotips]

Former restaurant owner here, and I think this is how realtors make even more by making multiple tenants split the costs of a single place, and add lots of "common areas" fees on top.

[apierre]

Honey, come here! Nathan dropped another banger!

[princessjellyfish]

Seeing how little Ponce City Market pays in taxes vs how the rent's climbing in Midtown and Virginia Highlands is a little infuriating ngl

[tylerbreazeale]

I'll step up for food halls and Ponce in particular. As you pointed out, the rise of e-commerce has gutted traditional retail and foot traffic to commercial districts. The food hall model has been one of the few things that has bucked the trend of decline and successfully anchors commercial space. I think if we're being honest it's easy to see that proximity adds a lot of value to property around it because people like them. Ponce drives traffic to the beltline and the beltline's popularity has spurred millions in dense residential development to cater to people who want a taste of walkable urban experience. (Setting aside ACTUAL walkability but for Atl I think we take it as a step in the right direction) I don't mind they get a temporary tax break to help fuel the growth of O4W because what we've missed in taxing them comes back in the value created around it. I would take subsidizing a food hall over a new stadium or something any day of the week. Anyway, long story short I think we as urban advocates have to be ok taking imperfect wins. Are food halls perfect? Is it disrupting business elsewhere? Do they serve locals first? All fair questions and criticisms, but they ARE successful breeding grounds for small businesses, popular physical commercial destinations, and for examples like Ponce and Colony Square are walkable food options for thousands of office workers and apartment residents that make the walkable lifestyle more attractive.

[cyclicmusings]

It appears Google Maps refers to these as "Food Courts" but yes, even here I can count 4 or 5 examples of food halls scattered around my metro area. But back to that "Food Court" labeling - this makes sense as the food hall is a reiteration of the of the mall food court - with two notable changes. First, the food hall contains small local food establishments that won't generally otherwise survive in a standalone building + often being paired with craft breweries. This is opposed to the traditional mall food court which is almost exclusively occupied by national chain restaurants and devoid of alcohol for the most part. The other major exception is that since the food hall typically doesn't have a massive mall surrounding it with an even more massive parking lot around that, it is able to much easier fit into a urban setting. Yes, food halls are a sort of fad but if they can encourage more urban development away from car dependency, then they're doing pretty well.

[destinyizkalling]

I've seen you making videos around town - keep it up! Really appreciate this style of local urbanism reporting. Cheers, mate!

[thomas_delaney]

You’ve got a great editing style and storytelling abilities. I’ve got a feeling this channel is going to blow up!

The one thing I will add about the Edgewood Ave closures is that they were driven more by high rent than a low demand. The landlords on the Avenue want to make space for higher end products, largely due in part to the beltline’s popularity, but not just because of a lack of interest.

[JLundegaardify]

i ride my bike down edgewood from the beltline to downtown basically every day. the street is typically filthy, restaurants are sparse, the street car only serves half of it (who is even riding it, anyway) and there are always unhoused people milling about (nothing against the unhoused!). there used to be a serious encampment underneath the highway overpass but the city must have run all them off, to god knows where. there are no serious destinations on edgewood, even less places to park, and a lack of transit serving the street. why go there? at least krog and ponce have parking. i’m not saying that the model Is The Way, my beef is ultimately with automobility-centric urban development, and edgewood is a casualty of that type of development.

[serafinacosta]

Old concept repackaged and pre existing all over the world in so many different forms.

In Brazil, it is called a Mercado Municipal. The most noteworthy is the Mercado Municipal da Cantareira, over Historic Downtown, São Paulo. The main building housing the food hall is a land marked Beaux Arts structure with ground floor and Mezzanine, original, y designed by Ramos de Azevedo.

There are several other neighborhood halls scattered throughout the city, such as Ipiranga, Lapa, Pinheiros, and out the satelite cities such as Santo André, Campinas.

All of the above aforementioned places are in densely populated cities and environs. Which puts the theory of only feasible in the burbs a bunch of malarkey.

[KCH]

Oh well, I have to make a comment before I could even watch this, I'm just hyped for the content 😊

[genghiskhan]

I loved going here when i lived in ATL

[jamesrivett]

once again big Nate D refuses to miss. great video man!

[Katy-gdxc]

Thank you for diving into the tax incentives! I mentioned this to a friend the other day and they had no clue. Would be great to see a similar deep dive into the Beltline and the development around that, along with the tax incentives