I wonder if our American Landscape of shopping malls and amusement parks would change a bit if they started referring to the food courts as "Grub Street"? Nah, prolly just get noisier and visually uglier. Judging by the food courts I've been in here, I am convinced that they are deliberately designed so that customers don't want to stay very long: with not-too-comfortable chairs and apparently no noise-absorption materials at all.