{"id":471073,"date":"2026-09-21T18:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T18:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/471073\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T18:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T18:42:15","slug":"are-restaurants-the-new-anchors-at-orange-county-malls-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/471073\/","title":{"rendered":"Are restaurants the new anchors at Orange County malls? \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

By 4 a.m. on a Friday morning, people were already waiting in the parking lot. By 8:40 a.m., nearly 400 people had lined<\/a> up at Newport Beach\u2019s Fashion Island. The queue snaked through the labyrinthine, open-air ode to luxury retail. Even a Los Angeles news helicopter hovered overhead to capture the scene.<\/p>\n

The reason for this ballyhoo? Levain Bakery, the New York City-born purveyor of fat, six-ounce cookies, had opened its first Orange County location<\/a>. And people, caught in the throes of new-dessert ecstasy, wanted in.<\/p>\n

These customers weren\u2019t grabbing a cookie while they shopped. They had come to the mall for the cookies themselves. The same food-first, shopping-second inversion can be found at Din Tai Fung<\/a> at Brea Mall, Hello Kitty Grand Cafe<\/a> at Irvine Spectrum Center and the new Blue Box Cafe by Daniel Boulud (surely its caviar-topped eggshell has found its way into your feed by now) at South Coast Plaza.<\/p>\n

Hungry? Sign up for The Eat Index, our weekly food newsletter, and find out where to eat and get the latest restaurant happenings in Orange County. Subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A far cry from the mall food of yore, when a Hot Dog on a Stick or a Mrs. Fields\u2019 cookie served as fuel between stops at Macy\u2019s and Spencer\u2019s Gifts, not the reason for the trip.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ: Mall dining: The ultimate guide to eating at Westminster\u2019s Asian Garden Mall<\/a><\/p>\n

While some traditional malls in some of the country\u2019s glittering metropolises have stalled \u2014 San Francisco Centre, once that city\u2019s largest mall, closed in January<\/a> \u2014 Orange County\u2019s gleaming retail palaces continue to pull people in. Restaurants, bakeries and snack shops, from high-end splurges to affordable bites, are being treated less like galleria amenities and more like destinations in their own right.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat people show up for now is dining and restaurants and food experiences \u2014 just what communities want in their neighborhood now,\u201d said Anastasia Kouimelis Scott, vice president of real estate and development at Levain Bakery. \u201cI think that has reflected in leasing patterns.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SushiSushi Roku at Fashion Island in Newport Beach on Monday, December 8, 2025. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register\/SCNG)<\/p>\n

At Fashion Island and Irvine Spectrum, the shift is measurable in the tenant roster. The two properties now have 83 dining and specialty-dining concepts between them, according to the Irvine Company. Sixteen opened within the past two years. Recent arrivals include Levain, Din Tai Fung and Ralph\u2019s Coffee, the brand\u2019s first West Coast location.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen over time that restaurants have become much more than an amenity to shopping,\u201d said Ken Gillett, president of Irvine Company Retail Properties. \u201cOur customers are looking for places where they can spend time, connect and have an experience in addition to shopping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Irvine Company said combined traffic at the two centers increased 18% over the past five years. It did not say how much of that gain could be attributed to dining. Gillett said visitors who come for coffee, lunch or dinner tend to stay longer, shop afterward, visit more stores and return more often.<\/p>\n

That does not mean the old anchors are kaput. Gillett said Nordstrom and Target at Irvine Spectrum and Neiman Marcus at Fashion Island remain important \u201cfor designer fashion and beauty.\u201d Malls fold meals into the visit, with eateries including Sushi Roku, 59th & Lex, Sessions, Bazille and Cafe Bistro. The strategy, he said, is to balance retail, dining, entertainment and other experiences.<\/p>\n

\"Tiny'sTiny\u2019s Burger, chef Sang Yoon burger-and-bodega concept, at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa opened in June 2026. (Photo by Brock Keeling, Orange County Register\/SCNG)<\/p>\n

Beyond their food courts, Orange County malls offer an impressive culinary lineup. At South Coast Plaza<\/a>, Knife Pleat, which held a Michelin star for five consecutive years, shares space with AnQi Bistro and Vox Kitchen & Bar<\/a>. Taiwan-born Din Tai Fung opened its first Orange County spot there, while Singapore-based Paradise Dynasty made its U.S. debut<\/a> there in 2021. The first California Blue Box Caf\u00e9 by Daniel Boulud<\/a> location, following the New York City flagship space. Even affordable concepts with chef pedigree have popped up at the Costa Mesa mall; Tiny\u2019s Burger<\/a>, chef Sang Yoon\u2019s burger-and-bodega concept, opened in June.<\/p>\n

\u201cDining is a major draw at South Coast Plaza,\u201d said Tenley Zinke, the center\u2019s executive director of marketing. \u201cWhether it\u2019s a leisurely lunch or a celebratory dinner, a memorable restaurant experience gives guests a reason to linger and make a day of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fine dining, however you see it, is nothing new at malls. Zinke traces South Coast Plaza\u2019s retail-dining marriage to its early years when Joseph Magnin opened at the center in 1968 and later housed Le Soup\u00e7on (both closing in 1984<\/a>). Charlie Palmer and others followed. What has changed, though, is the breadth of the offerings and their weight in leasing decisions, with restaurants increasingly expected to generate some of the traffic historically supplied by department stores.<\/p>\n

Nationally, that shift comes as department stores, once the almighty anchors of American malls, lose some of their pull. U.S. department store sales were virtually flat through the first eight months of 2026, rising about 0.2% year over year. Meanwhile, total retail and food service sales rose 5.2%, according to a recent Census Bureau report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"NorthNorth Italia restaurant at the Brea Mall in Brea in 2025. It opened in April 2026. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register\/SCNG)<\/p>\n

At Brea Mall<\/a>, that shift is visible outside. Its exterior redevelopment adds an outdoor plaza and 11 retail and dining spaces, including a 14,000-square-foot Din Tai Fung, North Italia and Pacific Catch. The Shops at Mission Viejo is building a 50,000-square-foot open-air village near its food court. North Italia is slated for late 2026, followed by Gus\u2019s BBQ, Tommy Bahama Marlin Bar and Blue Bottle Coffee in early 2027, according to a spokesperson for Simon Property Group.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are planning dining occasions more intentionally than ever, and they\u2019re willing to go out of their way for experiences they\u2019re excited about,\u201d said DJ Duporte, senior director of marketing at North Italia. \u201cWhether someone comes for dinner and stays to shop or comes to shop and decides to grab a meal, the best properties create that natural connection.\u201d<\/p>\n

The buildout comes as several of the country\u2019s malls post traffic gains. Estimates supplied by location-analytics firm Placer.ai show visits increased year-over-year every month from January through August at Brea Mall, Irvine Spectrum and Fashion Island. In August, visits rose 30.4% at Brea Mall, 14.8% at Irvine Spectrum and 6% at Fashion Island. South Coast Plaza gained 6.3% while The Shops at Mission Viejo climbed 1.2%.<\/p>\n

Placer.ai, which provides location intelligence and demographic data for retailers, cannot isolate dining visits or establish cause and effect. Redevelopment, retail openings, events and other factors could also affect traffic. But it\u2019s hard to ignore the importance of food \u2013 and humongous cookies \u2013 as a main draw.<\/p>\n

Neither Irvine Company nor South Coast Plaza disclosed what share of revenue comes from dining. South Coast Plaza does not publish its landlord revenue. But a November 2025 Orange County Business Journal report<\/a> put its annual taxable sales at $2.6 billion, the highest among Orange County shopping centers.<\/p>\n

At that scale, dining is hardly a side dish anymore. In today\u2019s Orange County mall, where denizens are more prone to \u201cadd to cart\u201d than hit a brick-and-mortar, a six-ounce cookie or basket of xiao long bao may be what gets customers through the door.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By 4 a.m. on a Friday morning, people were already waiting in the parking lot. By 8:40 a.m.,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,7,611,412,580,420,136],"class_list":["post-471073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-california","tag-orange-county","tag-restaurants","tag-restaurants-food-and-drink","tag-things-to-do","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}