Jose Garces Joins Marc Vetri at The Moorestown Mall

The PREIT Quarterly Earnings Call is normally of no use to the food industry, but this week's entry dropped a big nugget of info: Jose Garces is opening a Distrito in the Moorestown Mall. That's right, the Iron Chef is joining fellow Philly culinary icon Marc Vetri in becoming the first two lab (mall)rats in this crazy experiment.

While the Vetri announcement was a huge shock and looked like an anomaly, adding Garces to the roster points to a paradigm shift in the way local mall operators hope to bring a different crowd to their properties. It's a great way to change the public perception of what malls can offer, too.

There's no timeline for the Distrito opening as of now, and Osteria is just in the early stages of construction, with holiday 2013 as the target for ribbon cutting. Either way, if these endeavors end up being a success, look for more high end mall operators to try and tempt star chefs to open restaurants inside their monuments of consumerism, just like the casino model.

· Quarterly Earnings Call Announces Jose Garces to the Moorestown Mall [PREIT]
· All Jose Garces Coverage [~EPHI~]
· All Marc Vetri Coverage [~EPHI~]