Other major tenants, including Mann Theatres, which holds large spaces at the Exchange and Marketplace, are expected to vacate the properties when their leases expire.
While the latest vacancies added to those already at the sites, they were largely a result of tight competition amid challenging economic conditions for retailers, said John Drayman, chairman of the Redevelopment Agency.
“On the one hand is the economy,” Drayman said.
“On the other hand there is also the local menu of food establishments in the Brand Boulevard area and a certain competition for retail dollars among those types of businesses.”
Food service businesses are likely to face continuing challenges as economic uncertainty continues to affect spending habits, experts said.
Consumers have grown increasingly stingy when buying food, with more Americans opting out of restaurant dining for frozen meals or home cooking, said Harry Balzer, vice president of the NPD Group, a New York-based consumer market research firm.
About a third of consumers say they are not dining out as often as they like, according to the National Restaurant Assn.
That could mean pent-up demand for restaurants that survive long enough to see consumers relax their spending habits, experts said.
“People are still dining out, and as the economy improves, we expect customer traffic to increase,” Annika Stensson, a spokeswoman for the association, said in an e-mail.
But all restaurants and food service businesses will likely face challenges until economic conditions improve in a way that they haven’t in years, Balzer said.
“If we can get our household wealth increasing again, we’ll go out to restaurants again,” Balzer said. “But that hasn’t happened in a decade.”
