I was recently listening to the Bad on Paper podcast and they raised the following question:

What restaurants would make up your ideal food court?

It’s a great conversation starter, and I’ve found it can draw out some pretty heated opinions.

It’s also tough question, but I decided to add even more of a challenge and limit the number of choices to five.

Here are my answers:

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1) Quiznos

Typically, if I’m craving a sandwich I’ll go to Subway. It’s simple and familiar and I have the app on my phone with my order tee-d up. But there is something very nostalgic and comforting about Quiznos for me. In my early 20’s I worked in retail at my local mall and it was…a lot. There were crazy hours and crazy customers—one of which told me I ruined her granddaughter’s Christmas—and most of the time I went in with a survival mentality. I just have to get through these 8 hours. I just have to finish folding this last stack of men’s t-shirts. I just have to get to lunch. Ah, lunch. The one-hour break where I got to sit in the back room with my headphones on, and just be left ALONE. My store was inside a mall, and thus there was a full food court at my disposal, and yet I only EVER went to Quiznos for lunch, and I only EVER ordered the Chicken Carbonara on wheat bread with no bacon. After a while, the guy behind the counter started to recognize me and would start making my sandwich whenever I walked in. He felt like an ally in my battle to survive retail, and Chicken Carbonara was my comfort food.

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2) Bluebell Ice Cream

I am a sucker for an ice cream cone. And sometimes in the summer, when it’s 1000 degrees and you haven’t planned anything for dinner, a double scoop in a waffle cone promises nothing but satisfaction. There are plenty of delicious ice cream shops native to Southern California, but I would choose Bluebell. As of now, Bluebell remains unavailable in California, so I only have it when I visit family back east. As a result, I constantly hold all other ice creams to the standard of Bluebell’s Salted Caramel Cookie, and nothing has come close to measuring up.

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3) Chick-Fil-A

I don’t eat fast food often but when I do it is almost exclusively Chick-Fil-A. In 2020, when so many gatherings happened over Zoom, me and a group of cousins did a french fry ranking bracket, where I fought for Chick-Fil-A fries as if they were a constitutional right. I would also choose Chick-Fil-A sauce as my *condiment of choice* and they have milkshakes. So…duh.

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4) Coffee Bean

I’m not a coffee drinker, but I understand the need for a shop geared towards surviving the morning. Every time I’ve taken an early flight, I’ve stopped off at a coffee shop to grab a muffin or banana, and if I’m feeling wild (or freezing) a hot chocolate. Recently, I’ve started dabbling in the world of tea which has made me feel less like a coffee shop outcast. So I feel like this would be a good fit for both who I’m becoming and for my friends and family who would boycott my food court if this was not included.

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5) Pizza Press

And finally, pizza. (DUH part 2.) There are only a few pizza places that I would actively choose not to order from, as I find pizza delicious 90% of the time. So honestly, this slot could be given to any pizza chain. However, Pizza Press is another one with fond memories and one of my favorite pizzas ever: “The Times” (with no cilantro). It used to be my favorite place to order from when I visited my cousins in Irvine, and a go-to spot after Friday night softball games. There isn’t one very close to me anymore, so I mostly pop around making replicas of the “The Times” at other pizza places, though nothing is ever as good.

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And that my friends, is my ideal food court.

What would yours be?