Department stores have struggled to set themselves apart from each other for decades. Food has started to play a bigger role in those efforts. In addition to exclusive brands and signature fashion lines, retailers have been focusing on offering customers a unique shopping experience. Recently more top retailers are adding one-of-a-kind restaurants and bars to that experience. Some chains have added dining aimed at catering to foodies, menus designed for health-conscious consumers, and bars that serve cocktails to customers while they take a break.<\/p>\n
Saks, which has high-end restaurants at some of its luxury department stores, opened 51Fifteen Restaurant & Lounge<\/em>, a new bar and cafe inside the men\u2019s department of its Houston, Texas store. Macy\u2019s opened Stella 34 Trattoria<\/em> as part of the remodel of its Herald Square flagship in New York City. It\u2019s not new for Macy\u2019s stores to have on-site restaurants either, but the new 10,000 sq. ft. Italian eatery will stay open later than the store, and offers views of the Empire State Building. In-store restaurants have traditionally served as a convenience for shoppers and employees in need of a place to grab lunch during their shifts. New concepts like 51Fifteen Restaurant & Lounge<\/em> and Stella 34 Trattoria<\/em> aim to become destinations in and of themselves, bringing in customers who might otherwise never enter the store.<\/p>\n Nordstrom Inc., which currently operates about 200 restaurants and espresso bars in its department stores, has operated in-store cafes for at least half a century. The concepts include high-end cuisine, small plates and a fresh juice bar. Nordstrom Cafes are meant to keep shoppers in the store once they are there. Offering in-store cafes and restaurants at large department stores is not a new concept, but it is a concept that some top companies are reinventing.<\/p>\n Chain Store Guide<\/em><\/strong> has databases of information on retailers and restaurant chains. For more detailed information on the top companies mentioned including their remodeling plans, see www.ChainStoreGuide.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Department stores have struggled to set themselves apart from each other for decades. Food has started to play a bigger role in those efforts. In addition to exclusive brands and signature fashion lines, retailers have been focusing on offering customers a unique shopping experience. Recently more top retailers are adding one-of-a-kind restaurants and bars to… Continue reading Shop While You Eat, or Eat While You Shop?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"post-template-no-sidebar.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-3559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apparel-department","tag-insight","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}