This one is particularly tricky. More so, because there is hardly any statistical evidence for or against the hypothesis?do food joints in malls help drive retail sales? Will Pareto?s 80:20 rule of thumb hold valid in this case? Maybe yes, maybe no! While in the wake of recession, buying another bag became a ?luxury?, eating out was a ?comfort? worth indulging in. People didn?t stop eating out; they just started eating out less often. ?An average consumer eats out seven times in a month. Half the instances of eating out are standalone events. At other times, eating out is clubbed with shopping, watching a movie or simply to catch up with friends and relatives,? says Saloni Nangi, VP, Technopak Advisors. The recent Technopak study also points out that 23% of people engaged in shopping while eating out.

So, food joints are definitely intrinsic to drive in footfalls. ?Our study shows that people walk into malls twice a day for food, once a week to buy grocery and once in a fortnight for clothing. Since the need for food is large, we try and create a good spread through full-fledged restaurants and kiosks. And, as anyone would guess, impulse buying may just happen,? asserts Kishore Bhatija, CEO, Inorbit malls. Bhatija selects the F&B brands at his store with extreme care. He has declined several requests of individual operators to run the entire food court. ?Now even high-street brands vie for space in the food court,? he says.

Consider this: Of the 175 McDonald?s in India, 55% are located in malls. Interestingly, of the nine restaurants it opened last year, seven are in malls. ?Our mall stores do very well,? says Vikram Bakshi, MD and JV Partner, McDonald?s India (North & East). The Pizza Hut outlet in Malad?s Inorbit Mall does the maximum business in entire Mumbai! Of the four outlets it opened in India last year, two are in malls. Roughly, 50% of the KFC joints that opened last year are in malls. ?Eating is fairly central in the decision-making process of visiting a mall. You think you?ll just do some window shopping and eat out, but eventually end up buying things you hadn?t really planned in the first place,? says Unnat Varma, Director-Marketing, Yum! Restaurants India-KFC. He himself gladly admits to falling into the impulse buying trap.

The formula isn?t too difficult to crack. ?One rarely goes to the mall alone. You either go with friends or family. Food and entertainment are, thus, an intrinsic part of the experience. When you sit down to eat, you tend to observe the labels around you, the shopping bags in other people?s hands. So indirectly, it does fuel a demand by creating an aspiration,? reasons Nirupama Soundararajan, External Consultant, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER).

?In a typical mall, close to 30% of the space is allocated to the F&B segment, including the food court, fine dining options and the kiosks. The kiosks are getting particularly popular because the space they occupy doesn?t eat into the covered area of the mall and still generate good revenue. The specialty restaurants definitely bring in dedicated footfall. But the correlation of food courts and the kiosks with footfalls is not too high,? says Nipun Jain, Senior Manager, Consultancy & Valuation, Colliers International, a service provider to property investors and retailers.

Given the high interest quotient food enjoys, malls are getting finicky about their food courts as well. Shubhranshu Pani, MD, Retail Services, Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj, strongly feels that Indian mall developers have refined their marketing strategies for food courts. ?Earlier, mall developers established and managed their own food courts. Food courts were just a low-profile component of the overall mall experience. Today, since these have become specialty areas, mall developers ask professional restaurateurs and established fast food brands to take over the allotted space. These, in turn, have turned food court visits into stand-alone experiences in their own right.? He adds, ?Inorbit Mall in Vashi and Malad, Infinity at Andheri are all very successful and their food courts are always full. Choosing the right brand also serves as the key to good mall management.?

So, how does a mall take its pick? Select City Walk in Delhi, for instance, has over 30 F&B providers in all, each falling in the all-day diner segment. ?An intelligent mall will just opt for the all-day diners. Specialty restaurants or pubs that open only at night don?t add much value to the shopping bit. People essentially come to malls for retail therapy; it?s about the entire experience. Think of it, would you like to come to a mall when most other stores are closed,? reasons Rajiv Duggal, CEO, Select City Walk. Having studied his catchments well, Duggal almost hand-picked each of the F&B brand he wanted at Select. He has little reason to complain?nearly 42% of his walk-ins get converted into sales. His all-day diners are a hit with the women, especially on Wednesdays, for their kitty parties. And most restaurants such as Sphagetti Kitchen have tables reserved for business lunches. While the businessmen may not linger on after lunch to shop, chances are the women would definitely indulge in some serious retail therapy. However, things are quite different at the Square One Mall in Delhi. The mall only hosts Tabula Rasa and a coffee shop. ?Ours is a high-end mall where only the serious buyers walk in. We dont? like to shift the attention to food,? says Nagendra Kumar, Mall Manager, Square One. The mall, housing labels such as Rohit Bal, Anita Dongre and Anju Modi, reports over 80% conversion of walk-ins to sales.

But it?s definitely a win-win situation for the restaurants and their fraternity. Rajyasree Sen chose to open her 44-cover restaurant, Brown Saheb, at MGF Mall last year ?because it was financially a more viable option. Moreover, you get a captive audience, one you broadly know the profile of?. Restaurateur Sanjay Munjal has a different opinion though. Joy Luck Moon is his first attempt at a mall. ?The rent at Select is as high as Khan Market, where I run one of my restaurants. But the advantage here is that we operate for full 12 hours. My other restaurants, located on the high-street, close down from four to seven because there are no walk-ins. But the 31-seater Joy Luck at no time goes empty.? Munjal credits majority of the walk-ins to food, but is unsure how many of them help drive sales in other stores. Quite an open secret this hypothesis has proved to be.