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A popular fast-food restaurant in Circle Centre Mall did not make it to 2023.
A Chick-fil-A location in the mall’s third-floor food court permanently closed on New Year’s Eve. According to “thank you” signs placed on the restaurant’s counter, operations ceased on Dec. 31 following “20 years of happy memories and service.”
In August 2022, a Chick-fil-A location opened at 10 E. Washington St., less than a block from the mall. Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A has more than 30 restaurants in central Indiana.
The Chick-fil-A at Circle Centre Mall opened in October 2002.
The first central Indiana locations of Chick-fil-A opened at Castleton Square Mall and Greenwood Park Mall in 1981.
Attempts to reach a corporate representative of Chick-fil-A were unsuccessful.
After the closure of Chick-fil-A, the mall’s third-floor food court is home to eight restaurants:
- A&W
- Bella Pizzeria
- Charleys Philly Steaks
- City Wok
- Naptown Hot Chicken
- Prox Salads
- Subway
- Taco Bell
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to include Subway on the list of existing food court tenants.
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It was still busy during conventions like Gen Con, but the writing was on the wall after the new location opened.
Another shoe drops…what in the world is the city going to do with this obsolete retail dinosaur?
Combine this with all the vacant office buildings, and you have a recipe for crime-filled, dead central business district.
Should be turned into a casino. Would be massive moneymaker for city/state.
Vacant office converted into multifamily (I.e. 220 N Meridian)
A new Chick-Fil-A with two kitchens opened on Washington Street at street level in August.
A new blues bar just opened in the old Burger Study spot, which is also on street level.
We got a tourist-attraction Sugar Factor.
The problem is not Downtown, the problem is the antiquated business model of malls.
You ever been downtown? I’ve lived here basically my entire life and can assure you that the central business district is far from dead and crime filled. Downtown, in general, is doing pretty damn good. Tons of new development happening!
Casino – now that’s an idea C.D. !
As far as converting all the vacant office buildings to apartments, the market just won’t absorb that many units.
I just love to see all the “happy” and dismal comments. These sort of people said it would never work from the beginning. It lasted, in not too much of a changed format for what 28 years?
The only thing missing is a “re-imagining” of what is needed. More, better and more appropriate vendors need to be added. Better connections to more buildings will certainly help. People do NOT like walking around in cold weather or extremely hot weather. More bridges and underground pathways to all the Hotels would certainly help. Its VERY costly but it creates something most cities do not have. This is especially true of Chicago and New York. Vacant buildings? For the moment they are but this sort of vacancy has always happened. A better connection, not only to Hotels but to the many downtown residents too. If you could walk to or ride on small trams within the passageways would make it very convenient for downtown residents to get things they need without cars. True running paths that extended for miles would change everything. Computerized monitoring and AI control of necessities would mark a new move toward what was intended all along.
Walk ways suck foot traffic off the street killing the street level retail. Chicago does just fine without walkways. What you think is obvious is anathema to good urban design.
Dan, Chicago actually has a large underground tunnel system in the Loop called the Pedway. Toronto and Montreal also both have huge underground tunnel systems. All of these cities have much more street level retail than Indianapolis. They’re obviously much larger cities, but enclosed walkways don’t necessarily eliminate foot traffic or kill street level retail.
A start would be to substantially reduce the lawlessness downtown, but then that would take some real leadership & guts.
You mean like the pay-to-play behavior of our legislators at the Statehouse? It has been said that Indianapolis is only safe when the Legislature is out of session.
I am hopeful the low barrier shelter will make a difference.
Get out of here with that crap. You can always tell which people have no actual clue about downtown. The problem with the mall isn’t that it’s downtown, downtown is doing just fine (you should actually pay a visit sometime). The problem with the mall is that it’s a mall. With fewer and fewer stores that people actually care to patronize.
This was probably a corporate decision to drive traffic to the new location. Its pretty common for fast food restaurant to have exclusivity within the chain within a certain distance from other locations so they don’t cannibalize themselves. Subway is notable for not having one.
This was the only food court restaurant that I ever saw with a long line. They may be able to fill this slot but it will never be as busy.
Yep. Subway crapped all over their early franchisees with their expansion.
With Amazon at my fingertips, why would I ever step foot in a mall again?
Also, in the 80s, some kids in Hawkins, Indiana found a soviet military installation under their local mall. Just all around bad news.
The facts are exactly that. The FBI ranked Indianapolis as the 10th highest crime rate. That is not something any of us should be proud of regardless of your political alignment. I think we all want to see our downtown thrive and unfortunately that doesn’t appear to be the current track. I am also sure that Simon is very aware that the Circle Center Mall is not a winning formula and something will have to be done. I think if we could get the crime and homelessness headed the right way we would be in a much better position to attract the investors / organizations to rejuvenate properties such as the mall.
Petty sure Simon no longer owns or operates CC Mall.
Circle Centre originally saved downtown Indianapolis…it was a vast wasteland of empty buildings…you had to go to Roselyn at Washington and Pennsylvania to get one of their sandwiches or cut thru the back of a caterer to get to their counter or walk to the restaurant in “Chase” tower…and yes I know it is now Salesforce tower. I do NOT understand why Indianapolis can’t have a vibrant downtown. With all of the conventions and people moving downtown. The fact that we cannot support any retail stores is sad. What do people do when they come in from out of town? There are plenty of restaurants…especially steak houses, but other than TJ Maxx, that’s it for shopping. So they get into their car and go to the Fashion Mall or Castleton Mall on the Northside or down to Greenwood Park Mall on the Southside. I used to love to shop at Nordstrom downtown as well as Parisian…we are really missing something.