Walk through the corridor between Bloomingdale's and Neiman Marcus around 12:30 on a weekday and you used to face the same choice every regular at The Mall at Short Hills has made for years: sit down for a full meal at Ruth's Chris or Legal Sea Foods, or settle for whatever was left in the food court. There was no in between. If you had thirty minutes for lunch, the mall simply wasn't built for you.
That gap has closed in the past year, and it happened in two specific moves that regulars have been asking for since long before anyone put a name to the problem.
The Complaint That Never Went Away
The mall's sit-down dining has always been strong. Ruth's Chris Steak House serves USDA Prime beef broiled at 1,800 degrees. Legal Sea Foods anchors the first floor with a bright, booth-lined dining room. Benihana and The Cheesecake Factory round out the reservation-worthy tier, and the Hilton Short Hills adds The Dining Room for a more relaxed breakfast and lunch service. Neiman Marcus even runs its own cafe upstairs for shoppers who want a break between racks.
What the mall never had was a fast, honest lunch. Reviewers have pointed out for years that anyone looking for a quick bite between errands was stuck with limited options, a complaint that shows up again and again from people who actually shop there on a Tuesday, not just during holiday visits. The mall solved for luxury retail and for special-occasion dinners. It never solved for the person who has twenty minutes and needs to eat something real.
Eataly Changed the Math First
The first real fix arrived when Eataly opened its Short Hills location in November 2025, taking over 17,000 square feet in the space once occupied by Primo Mercato. It is the brand's 13th North American location, which matters because Eataly by this point has a proven formula: quick-serve counters for pizza, pasta, and gelato sit alongside a full 230-seat restaurant and bar called Eataly Ristorante. You can walk in, order a slice and an espresso at a counter, and be back at your car in fifteen minutes. Or you can sit down for a full Italian dinner. The same building now does both jobs, which is exactly what the mall's dining lineup was missing.
Pura Vida Closed the Rest of the Gap
Eataly solved the quick-Italian problem. It did not solve the quick-healthy problem, and that's where Pura Vida Miami came in. The Miami-based fast-casual chain opened its Short Hills location on April 16, 2026, at 1200 Morris Turnpike, marking the brand's 50th location nationally and its first in New Jersey. The menu runs on all-day breakfast, wraps, kale Caesar salads, açaí bowls, and cold-pressed juices, cooked without seed oils, with vegan and gluten-free options built in rather than bolted on.
Pura Vida picking Short Hills for its New Jersey debut, ahead of a long-rumored Hoboken location that still hadn't opened by the time Short Hills did, says something about how the mall is positioning itself. It's no longer just chasing exclusive luxury boutiques. It's chasing the brands that people already follow on their phones and want closer to home.
The Retail Side Is Shifting Too
The dining fix didn't happen in isolation. The mall's retail mix moved in the same direction over roughly the same stretch.
In December 2024, Romero Britto opened his first Northeast BRITTO store at the mall, with the artist himself on hand to sign purchases for visitors. Lucas Vidal, CEO of BRITTO Group, called it a milestone as the brand expanded into the Northeast. In May 2025, Victoria Beard Boutique opened its own storefront. Performance apparel brand Rhone also joined the lineup, bringing athletic wear built for daily use rather than occasion dressing.
None of these are the traditional department-store fashion the mall has leaned on for decades. They're art, wellness, and lifestyle brands, the kind of stores that assume you're already a regular rather than a once-a-season shopper. Paired with the dining changes, it reads less like a random string of leases and more like a mall recalibrating around the people who actually show up week after week, not just around holiday foot traffic.
What This Actually Changes on a Saturday
For anyone who already treats the mall as part of a weekly routine, here's what's different heading into fall.
You can now build a full morning around it without a single reservation. Start with coffee and a pastry from Eataly's counters, browse BRITTO and Victoria Beard while the mall is still quiet, and grab a bowl from Pura Vida before the lunch rush hits. If the weather holds, Reeves-Reed Arboretum is a short drive away for a walk after lunch, and Paper Mill Playhouse is close enough to make an early dinner and a show a realistic plan for one trip rather than two.
None of this required tearing anything down. The mall kept its steakhouses and its luxury boutiques and simply filled in the hours and the price points those anchors never covered. That's the actual story behind the openings, not a wave of new stores for its own sake, but a mall quietly closing the exact gap its own regulars had been complaining about for years.
If you've lived near Short Hills long enough to remember when a fast lunch meant driving somewhere else, this fall is the first season where that's no longer true.
Shannon Xavier keeps a close eye on what's actually changing in Short Hills and the surrounding towns, not just what's for sale. If you're weighing a move to this corner of Essex County and want a read on the neighborhood from someone who pays attention to it year-round, Schedule Your Concierge Consultation with Shannon Xavier.
