Food Is in at Outlets

In the old days, outlet centers either didn’t offer food options or the pickings were pretty lean. In today’s iteration, however, food often takes center stage.



Villa Enterprises, a 50-year-old multi-brand restaurant operator of banners such as Villa Italian Kitchen, Mo’ Burger, South Philly Steak & Fries and Tinta Mexicana, has set the curve with its “Food Hall by Villa” in Simon’s Arizona Mills Shopping Center in Tempe. In a completely transformed, 13,262-sq.-ft. dining space with 14,280 sq. ft. of seating — all designed by Ideation Design Group — Villa showcases its own eight restaurant brands along with Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Church’s Chicken.



Opened August 2014, the multi-million-dollar project has created an upscale streetscape dining experience. A month earlier, it unveiled a similar space at Simon’s Leesburg Corner Premium Outlets in Leesburg, Virginia.