Get Ready for Austin’s First Food Hall Fareground

Austin is getting its first food hall, Fareground, in downtown. The space, designed by the city’s restaurant starchitect Michael Hsu, will house local food and beverage vendors, though names haven’t been released yet. It will take over office highrise One Congress Plaza’s lobby on 111 Congress.

Fareground will open for lunch, happy hour, dinner, and weekends. Along with stalls and seating, there will be several meeting and coworking spaces. A rep said it would be similar to New York’s Gotham West Market.

The lobby. [Rendering: Michael Hsu Office of Architecture]

The outdoor portion of the plaza will be designed by dwg., which also worked on Lamar Union and is currently busy with Burnet Marketplace and several places in The Domain. There will be outdoor seating and an amphitheater. Construction begins on Tuesday, September 15, with a projected opening date in 2017.

Food halls are the country’s latest big trend, from Atlanta’s Ponce City Market, Bourdain Market in New York, to Eataly’s expansions to Boston and Los Angeles. The nearest thing Austin currently has to food halls are food truck courts.

Rendering: dwg.

The outdoor plaza. [Rendering: dwg.]