Shopping malls aren’t as empty as many Americans think despite the widespread belief that online shopping has kept people at home.
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Americans are heading to the mall, according to the Placer.ai May 2026 Mall Index.
Foot traffic was up 2.7% year over year at indoor malls last month, 5.5% at open-air shopping centers, and 2% at outlet malls. So far in 2026, March was the only month in which foot traffic contracted.
The problem is that there are far fewer malls for American shoppers to visit.
American malls have been beset by challenges over the last decade, from the collapse of big-box stores like Sears and JCPenney to online shopping habits created by the pandemic. As of June 2025, there are fewer than 1,000 malls remaining in the United States, down from 1,200 in 2015, according to the New York Times.
Fewer malls mean fewer mall food courts, and that has been news for a longtime staple of that section of the shopping center, Steak Escape.
Steak Escape was one of the first sandwich chains to prepare all its food in front of the customers. It’s a sandwich shop that specializes in the steak and cheese sandwich, which in the company’s 1980s heyday, was more of a regional favorite in Pennsylvania and the northeast than a nationally-known item.
As a teenager growing up outside of Boston, we had sandwich shop, roast beef places, and pizza restaurants selling steak and cheese sandwiches in pretty much every town, so Steak Escape wasn’t a chain I grew up with.
In parts of the country, however, the chain introduced the popular sandwich into new markets.
Bill Church, executive director of Food Service and Retail Development for MZD Advertising was part of a 2010 attempt to revive the brand. At the time, the chain still had locations in 24 states, and three countries, according to QSR Magazine.
“Steak Escape has an absolutely dynamic menu featuring Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches, a great steakburger, killer salads, fresh-cut fries, and a great baked potato,” Church told QSR. “If serving great food keeps people coming back, this is the answer. They have affordable prices and a great experience.”
Those efforts ultimately failed to reverse the chain’s long decline. It currently operates 20 restaurants across six states, according to the store locator page on its website.
When you add company-owned restaurants to the chain’s franchised locations, it nearly hit 300 locations in 2000, but has been in slow decline since then. Part of that happened because despite multiple efforts to move away from malls, the chain never quite figured out how to successfully grow outside the food court.
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In 2015, the chain had 51 remaining locations, only 19 of them in malls, and it rolled out a new “Express” version of its restaurant, according to NRN.
“In urban markets, people are at work, they have a limited time,” said Reginald Morris, the franchisee of the express unit, who is spearheading the effort. “They have one hour. They have a lot of food choices. They don’t want to spend five to 10 minutes in line.”
More Restaurants:
The Express rollout followed a broader 2011 rebranding that expanded the menu, introduced healthier options, and renamed the concept Steak Escape Sandwich Grill.
Neither initiative reversed the brand’s long-term decline.
Steak Escape is not alone in not being able to make the transtion from the mall food court to traditional restaurant. A number of other chains followed the same path, according to Parade, a sister publication of TheStreet.
Some examples include:
It’s fairly rare for a mall-based chain to make the transition successfully, but it’s not unheard of. Panda Express has transitioned from being a food court chain to growing significantly with traditional standalone restaurants.
The chain has 2,374 units domestically, making it by far the largest Asian concept in the U.S. And it’s still run by the same couple that founded the brand in 1983, Andrew and Peggy Cherng, according to Restaurant Business.
Panda Express began in a mall as a variation of the lunch menu at the full-service concept Panda Inn, a restaurant Andrew Cherng and his father Ming-Tsai Cherng first opened in 1973 in Pasadena, Calif. Panda Inn continues to operate under Panda Restaurant Group.
Around 1997, the chain opened its first standalone location.
“One of the things we learned about being in malls was that leases were shorter term, and we didn’t necessarily control our own destiny,” CFO David Landsberg told Restaurant Business. “When we moved to the street, we could depend on ourselves to stimulate demand, not depend on the malls.”
Now only about 170 locations are in malls, and less than 10% of sales is attributed to those restaurants.
That’s a transition, Steak Escape never fully made, leaving the chain as a small reminder of its past glory.
Related: Discount chain shuts 75 locations, calls its stores ‘substandard’
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This story was originally published July 19, 2026 at 8:17 AM.