Food halls, the popular pre-pandemic urban gathering spots, are headed to where their cutting-edge cuisines weren't imagined just a few years ago: the suburbs.

The slow return of workers to offices in major cities means the biggest crowds looking for a quick takeout or standup meal during or right after business hours could be drawn in coming years to smaller suburban halls catering to remote workers looking to socialize near their home, attendees at this year’s ICSC retail conference in Las Vegas said.

“The food hall craze was always built on having these go up in big cities, especially downtowns with lots of office buildings,” said Garrick Brown, director of advisory services and business development at Walnut Creek, California-based retail brokerage Lockehouse Retail Group. But the scenario has “completely changed. Now you’re seeing these planned in suburbs and exurbs, and even in more rural areas. You’re talking places like Twin Falls, Idaho, and Fargo, North Dakota,” he said.

There's also a change going on from the mostly 9-to-5 focus that was seen when food halls were being discussed five years ago as urban-focused projects dependent on office workers and tourists. Now the focus is moving to residential buildings.

“Developers are seeing this as a centerpiece, or an amenity to bring people into their new apartment and mixed-used developments,” said Phil Colicchio, an executive managing director in Cushman & Wakefield's New York City office who focuses on clients in the food service and hospitality industries.

“It used to be that multifamily developers built the apartments first, then the amenities,” Colicchio said. “That’s not really happening now with the food halls. The developers we’re speaking with are looking to build the apartments simultaneously with these food halls.”

Colicchio said he’s been in contact over the past few months with developers of apartments and mixed-use retail projects that are also interested in incorporating rentable meeting spaces that can make halls all-day centers of social activity along with food and beverage sales.

The push to the suburbs doesn't mean big-city food hall projects are a thing of the past. Setups are on their way in high-profile projects such as The Square, coming later this year as part of Tishman Speyer's larger renovation of Washington, D.C.'s 1.1 million-square-foot International Square office complex. In New York, JPMorgan Chase plans a new 60-story global headquarters that would include a food hall attached to a conference center on its top floor.

In all, Trip Schneck, another New York-based Cushman & Wakefield executive managing director focused on the food and hospitality industries, said 277 food halls cover about 5.8 million square feet in the United States, after nine closed permanently during the pandemic. Schneck, who wasn't at ICSC, said most of those shuttered venues were in urban locations that relied primarily on nearby office workers for their daily traffic.

Based on developments in the planning stages, Cushman brokers project 88 food halls will open across the country in 2022, followed by another 63 in 2023. Data was not available on how that split between urban and suburban locales.

Changes are afoot for the concept as it moves farther from urban cores. Thanks largely to online and app ordering and takeout and delivery habits that became entrenched during the pandemic, developers have been able to reduce the scale of the new crop of food halls. Upcoming projects are expected to range from 10,000 to 15,000 square feet, enough to accommodate about 10 to 12 vendors.

“That’s down from about a 21,000-square-foot average for food halls currently in operation,” Schneck said. “Based on the technology and other monetizing plans, the developers are probably going to be able to get the same efficiency with a smaller footprint.”

Tastes are changing, too. The next wave of food halls is expected to offer up healthier options such as plant-based foods and alcohol-free cocktails. Local, independent operators — a group of restaurateurs hardest hit by permanent closings of stand-alone restaurants during the pandemic — will probably still be the focus.

Lockehouse's Brown said smaller operators may be able to band together in food halls to share costs for virtual kitchens and other technology, adopting strategies deployed for digital takeout and delivery orders at many types of stand-alone restaurants. Also on the shared menu: labor, food and other costs now escalating for the restaurant industry and spurring operators to raise prices.

At the JLL booth at ICSC, brokers focused on food and beverage clients said interest remains robust when it comes to adding food halls to office and mixed-use developments. What remains constant, they said, whether interest is from urban or suburban projects, is a desire to fulfill needs beyond the traditional 9-5 requirements of office workers.

“A food hall can be good fit wherever you can find some critical mass, but what many of the operators are doing is setting up things like bars and fresh-produce and grocery stands to make them social hubs on evenings and weekends,” said Emily Durham, JLL senior vice president, who is based in the company’s Houston office.

That mix, she said, should allow food halls to cater to demands of both urban and suburban areas that have a dense residential customer base.

Rhonda Diaz, an executive vice president in JLL’s San Francisco Bay Area office, noted that because many food halls can be made outdoor-centric, there's a better chance to draw crowds for community events and entertainment. This is especially important for development in regions like the Bay Area, where urban foot traffic on weekdays is still relatively low compared with regions such as Houston and Dallas. The best locations will always be those with distinct ties to local history, featuring locally based chefs and other operators.

Wherever they locate, Brown said, the most effective food halls will distinguish themselves with locally made items, including craft beers, wines and spirits, as well as food from local chefs that can’t be found in other places. This will take some long-range discipline in planning, because tough economic times could make it tempting for some operators to bring in tried-and-true national chains that are also looking to expand — something that food halls were created to avoid to not become just another mall food court.

“As a food hall operator in certain circumstances, where would I be able to draw the line and say to Dunkin’ Donuts that they can’t come into one of these halls?” Brown said.