My reading is that City square may be open on non-game days and for special events but I don’t see anywhere that it says that it will be open all the time. It’s hard for me to imagine a full time food hall a la Urban Space or DeKalb functioning in Willets Point, competing day to day with the dirt cheap cornucopia that is Flushing. Heck, those places have a hard time in Manhattan with offices and foot traffic galore.
Which is a long way of saying I expect the same cycle we’ve seen at YS and Citi field and Red Bull Arena. The first couple of years the food options are novel and good and in some cases local. Then the novel/local vendors fall off or drastically reduce their footprint (see Parm, Mamas of Corona, Bareburger, Mighty Quinns). They are gradually replaced by chicken fingers and fries, because kids.
Even up in Foxboro in ‘96 they put in some stands aimed at the local Portuguese population including an amazing Linguica pizza. It lasted less than 6 months.
Of course the Yankees are worse. They don’t even have Franks hot sauce any more because they no longer sponsor the terrace.
We will get some interesting food options and then gradually they will figure out that they make more money off of chicken tenders and fries than Bolivian LLama Party can afford in rent, and I’ll be grabbing a Torta or a Chapli Kebab in Jackson heights or Corona Plaza and bringing it in. taqueria San Jose or the carts outside Terminal Market are my YS go-tos.
Unless they replicate the Mighty Quinn burnt end Nachos or the Citi field pastrami sandwich. I crave those.
