Food Court

There is so much talk about not taking children to Arundel Mills Mall if slots are there. We took my 27-year-old son who is a missionary in the Ukraine to the mall. As soon as we stepped on the curb, we heard terrible yelling and swearing. It was not a customer or teen! It was the security guard who had parked his Segway between the doors in the food court and was outside using loud and extremely foul language. It bothered me, not only for our family, but those with children coming behind.

  Consumers who buy clothing and footwear under $100 will get a break on the state's sales tax during Maryland-Tax-Free Week from Sunday, Aug. 12 to Sat. Aug. 18. Managers at Towson Town Center said they plan to lure shoppers on the first day of the week with gift card prizes ranging from $10 to $500. Starting at noon on Sunday, Aug. 12, the first 500 shoppers to visit the mall's customer service booth in the food court on level three will get a scratch off game card, a chance to win a gift card.

When Woodward & Lothrop, Inc. took on Annapolis Mall and its plans to add a Nordstrom and 50 new shops, mall officials decided that waiting around to see who would win should be their last option."

The District Court constable was waiting when John and Barbara Porter came to work yesterday morning. It was 9:27 by the Harborplace clock when he handed them the yellow notice telling them that John's All-American Chicken was history.Four men in suits gathered around Mr. Porter discussing the terms of the eviction as Mrs. Porter -- seething -- loaded up trays of hamburger buns.Outside, the sun shone brightly and the temperature was climbing toward the 70s. It was the kind of day the Porters had been hoping for since fall, when the end of the baseball season ushered in the six-month chill of Harborplace's off-season.

CROWDS used to mob the General Cinema theater complex at Towson Commons on Friday and Saturday nights. The lobby of the two-story, eight-screen cineplex was often so packed that it was hard to navigate the crowd. It also used to be the region's most popular teen hangout. Not so today. Eight years after Towson Commons cineplex opened to great fanfare, the place is a ghost town. Most movies -- including those attracting large crowds in other theaters -- play to only a couple of dozen viewers.

TownMall plans craft fair, health festival this month TownMall of Westminster has planned activities for Halloween and the rest of October. The mall is collecting money for UNICEF at participating stores all month. Money collected will provide food, medicine and education to needy children around the world. Kids Club will meet at 9:30 a.m. every Wednesday with a different theme each week. A fall craft fair featuring local craftspeople will be held during mall hours from Saturday to Oct. 18 near the food court.

Way in the back of Lotte Mart, the enormous Asian supermarket in Ellicott City, past 50-pound sacks of rice and the gorgeous stacks of green plums and Asian pears, across from the little boutique selling toy airplanes and Hello Kitty dolls, a food court sells freshly made and delicious food. Four restaurants line the edges of the court, offering incredibly inexpensive meals that can be eaten at the wooden tables in the open, comfortable space. Don't worry about language problems. Each restaurant has a row of pictures of the food, with prices written below.

Kent S. Digby, When the twin pavilions at Harborplace opened 24 years ago this month, it was impossible to know how many cities and architects around the world would try to copy their success. Now a week doesn't go by without a call or e-mail from developers, municipal groups or students asking about the project in nearly iconic terms, its marketers say. Baltimore's Inner Harbor has become a classic model for urban redevelopment. And it continues to evolve. While Harborplace still glitters from a distance, closer to home some of the shine has worn off in recent years.

At 2 o'clock on a Friday afternoon at Arundel Mills mall, sun streamed through the skylights illuminating the vast food court. Snacking shoppers filled fewer than half of the brightly hued chairs. And in the relative quiet, the Winter family of Friendship Gardens had a peaceful lunch. "We're a mall family," said Bill Winter, 33, a truck driver. "We come here and just wander. It's a place where you can take your children, out of the weather, and they can run around. You can get some exercise, have something to eat, have some family time."

NOT LONG AGO, manufacturing was such a bedrock of American cities that no one would have believed it if you had predicted that the urban factory would one day become obsolete. The idea that buildings teeming with workers would turn into empty hulks was simply unimaginable.Likewise, not so long ago few would have believed it if you told them suburban shopping malls must look for ways to survive.Into the early 1990s, the mall formula -- department store anchors, usually upscale, connected to specialty shops and, of course, a food court -- was so popular that people assumed it would always work.