Prestige Group is rewriting that rule by not doubling but more than trebling the amount of space in malls that are reserved for food retail. This is in contrast to the general standard and thumb rule among developers, which is to keep 5 percent of the total space in malls for food retail.
More than one and a half lakh square feet, or fifteen percent of the total one million square feet of space that will be available when the largest mall in Bengaluru opens on Thursday, will be devoted exclusively to food and beverage establishments.
Prestige Group’s upcoming Forum Falcon City Mall!
“Muhammad Ali, CEO-Retail, Prestige Group, believes their newest and largest retail and entertainment center in Bengaluru will transform the way people view food retail in malls.”
If you include the LuLu HyperMarket‘s 75,000 square feet of space, which is dedicated to food retail as well, the total square footage devoted to food retail in China is over 2 lakh square feet says Muhammad Ali, CEO-Retail, Prestige Group in a telephone conversation on the eve of the opening of Bengaluru’s newest shopping and entertainment destination.
Since 2004, we have been in the mall development business. All the prior initiatives had roughly 90% space dedicated to fashion and clothing, with the remaining 10% split between F&B and entertainment, he explains.
According to him, eating out at a shopping mall was never a common practice till recently. In the past, people only ate at restaurants on the high streets. He claimed the pandemic has altered people’s views, and that the Forum Falcon City Mall will reflect such shifts.
“Forum Falcon will have forty different dining options, the greatest of which is the 25,000 square foot microbrewery,” Ali stated. Additionally, there will be a food court with seating for 1200 people and twenty separate eateries. “These will be distributed across all of the levels,” he said.
Since individuals have strong feelings about the food they eat, Ali said they had designated a special section of the store for vegetarians, stocking it with four or five vegetarian-friendly brands.
Ali mentioned several additional exciting developments in the grocery retail industry, including the use of a mobile app that includes barcodes on each table so that customers can place orders through a centralized platform and pay using a digital payment gateway. Mobile orders will be displayed when the device prepares.
Prestige Group News:
They’ve set aside an area just for food deliveries so that all of their F&B suppliers can meet the needs of their patrons who are waiting outside. Guests and shoppers at the mall won’t be bothered by the online aggregators who have registered for a special entrance and exit, and a special parking lot just for them. For both online and offline food deliveries, “we have worked out a new revenue-sharing system with partners,” he explained.
According to Ali, the mall draws a large and affluent captive audience from south Bengaluru. Once things calm down, he predicts “roughly one million each month” in visitors.
