The Rise of the Lincoln Mall
Posted by Patrick on Friday, October 07, 2005Let me preface this post with a post from almost a year ago. Ode to you, Lincoln Mall.
For those of you who don't read it, I wrote a sad tale about how the Lincoln mall was fading into mall obscurity, full of abandoned stores and empty parking spots. While it wasn't exactly a countdown to doom, things weren't looking good for the mall.
But the times, they are a changing. Kate became aware that there was a Chili's opening adjacent to the mall, as well as a Target, replacing the long-gone K-Mart. We decided to try the Chili's for supper tonight, assuming we could almost walk right in and sit where we please, because it's the Lincoln Mall, after all.
Shock and amazement awaited us as we arrived, the parking lot was full. Like Christmas-full. Chili's was too packed for us to eat there, with crowds waiting outside get tables. Could this be the same Lincoln mall? Minds were boggled. The parking lot, which was once known (at least too me) as the largest unobstructed area of pavement in all the land was totally done over with sidewalks and dividers and light posts. The era of Lincoln mall parking lot donuts has passed us by.
Check out this photo I found on Google. Not only is it a photo of the mall, but you can see the wide expanse of the parking lot, and the donuts that were once a way of life there.
Instead of waiting at Chili's for who knows how long, we swung around the back of the mall to access the Papa Gino's within. There was a gigantic new building back there, which is about to become a movie theatre. Crazy! There once was a theatre in the Lincoln mall, but that closed in the late 90's.
The "old mall" area is under some intense construction. We walked in one entrance, which leads down a long hallway, and only has a nail salon and some sort of training school at the end. We had to walk all the way back out and go through another entrance to get in. Some of the old stores are still inside, like Radio Shack. How does Radio Shack stay open? I don't get that at all.
After we ate, we headed over to where the Target is. It's not suppose to open until Sunday, but I had a feeling that they'd be doing a "Silent Opening" where they have employees there, and open the doors for customers, pre-grand-opening. This is the dry run of the retail industry. Clearly this was no secret silent opening, as the store was packed.
It was like pretty much any Target, but it had a Starbucks in it. Kate and I decided to give it a try, but the employees there were not the normal well-trained Starbucks employees (like Jay and Erin once were). These employees had no idea what they were doing, reading off charts on the wall on how to make stuff. The lady who took our order had to ask us three times to repeat what we ordered because she forgot to write the stuff on the cups. Not a big deal, we did get what ordered, and they were pretty nice.
It's weird to see the Lincoln mall packed full of people. Kate referred to it as the Phoenix of the mall.
(For those of you who are really curious, this site has some thorough detail on the mall)
There are 2 comments! ≡
