Food Courts

Problem Spots Galleries Food Courts Fountains Parking Lots Design Problems Public Transportation Pedestrian Flow Narrow Passageways Restrooms and Telephones Tips for Keeping Malls Safe

Food courts are difficult to monitor, because this is a spot where customers legitimately spend long periods of time, and also where youth and offenders gather and loiter. Detecting people who are loitering is difficult in food courts with one large seating area. Not only are there a large number of seats, restaurant employees don't really have an interest in policing the area. Click here for a case study about employees preventing crime in the workplace. It's better to have separate seating areas for each restaurant, but often this isn't possible. Here are some other ideas for making your food court less of an appealing hang-out. restrict seating to 30 minutes require that all people make a minimum food purchase use chairs without back support use chairs and tables that are attached to the floor so folks can't move them to accommodate large groups use uncomfortable seating that encourages people to move along keep the area clean -- this lets people know the space is being monitored