Dear Cherry Hill Mall

Dear Cherry Hill Mall,

You and I were once very good lunch buddies. I’d park at the food court, do a little shopping, grab a bite to eat and get back to work. Or, I’d park at the food court, do a LOT of shopping and take food back to work with me. Or I’d spend the entire hour in the food court, sitting in the streams of sun that came in from the windowed ceiling, reading a book while eating. Or if work was extra busy, I’d pop into the food court and take something back with me. All in the span of an hour.

Now, I’ll run in, do my shopping, and pick up lunch elsewhere.

What changed?

It wasn’t me, it’s you.

See, before you renovated yourself into a slippery-floored, high-end destination mall for wealthy stay-at-home-women, your food court was in the middle of the mall and had its own entrance. No matter which store I wanted, I knew if I secured a parking spot at the food court entrance, I could make good time and get food on the way out. Now, you’ve tucked your food court into a dark corner next to JCPenney, which is on a far end of the mall. And it doesn’t have its own entrance.

So now to maximise my mall-time, I have to find a spot in the garage, navigate to the well-hidden entrance in the middle of the mall, shop where I want and head out. Unfortunately, if my travels don’t take me to the JCPenney wing, it’s a waste of time for me to walk past my entrance, head to the food court, wait in line and bring the food all the way back through the mall to where I parked.

I’m going to be honest here and it might hurt your feelings, but it has to be said: I don’t eat at your food court anymore because it depresses me.

The new food court is darker and smaller (and therefore more crowded and noisy) than the old one was. The selection seems smaller. I know you’d rather me eat at your Capital Grille or Seasons 52 and you don’t do much to hide desire that from me, especially when the food court chairs and tables aren’t comfortable at all.

Takeout? No thanks. I don’t do takeout from your food court anymore since I don’t want to have to carry my food through the mall or JCPenney to get to my car. Maybe I’m funny that way because I used to work in a JCPenneys and dealt with dropped food and dirty napkins on the floor all the time. But I’m sure I’m not the only one.

You’ve decided that having tiled mosaic floors, sofas, and a parking garage trumped the needs of the lunchtime crowd. And that’s okay. I’ll bring my lunchtime dollars elsewhere.

But bear in mind that my going elsewhere to have lunch significantly cuts the time I have to browse your new stores. Remember, I only have an hour.

And the Wegmans food court has its own entrance.

Regards,
Kim

Dreams:
1) I’m in charge of raising 2 guinea pigs from birth. One’s really sickly and we don’t think he’ll make it, but they both grow up fine.

2) I stop a bank robbery by swinging my bag at the back of the robber’s head while he’s up with the teller.