Read up on Singapore’s hawker centres for an idea of what’s possible with food courts

Those are the result of forced ghettoization of the street vendors. When I was a kid (mid 60s/early 70s) the place was a lot less regimented and there were street vendors everywhere. There was much greater variety of food (and hygiene). Cleaning that up homogenized things — which I want to believe was an accidental side effect, though one can never be sure.

You can think of the generic food courts in the typical US mall, but there are also plenty more boutique food malls around.

Palo Alto used to have a funky food court where the downtown Apple store now stands. It had been a supermarket but converted sometime in the 70s. It lasted into the late 80s.

Apart from nostalgia, it’s where Debbi Fields started “Mrs Fields cookies”. Yes, another Palo Alto startup from the 70s.