Coastal Grand Mall

Today I headed down the road a bit to check out the Grand Coastal Mall. I went for a couple of reasons. First of all, I was curious how this "grand" mall was fairing in a time of increasing mall deaths. Growing up in the 80's, malls were our meccas, and it breaks my heart to see them slowly wither and die on the vine. The second reason was, growing up in the 80's malls were our mecca and there was no better place to be for the holidays, so I wanted to get a little holiday spirit going!

As to the first point, this mall was still fairly stable. There was one big, empty anchor spot position, and the store slots were not all filled, but I would say they were at least at 90% capacity, so there was not that haunted ghost town feeling many struggling malls now have. Plus, they still had the biggies: Bath and Body Works, Victoria's Secret, Old Navy, etc. and so forth; so all-in-all, they were still alive and kicking!

As for the festive spirit- they did have Christmas music tuned up and a delightful Pictures with Santa in the main hub set up, complete with lit up palm trees, because...this is the beach, after all! They even advertised pictures with Santa for your pooch, which I would love to do, but only on Mondays, which is a workday, so I will have to hold out for Petsmart pictures!

And I can vouch for the sales at the stores! So, if you are looking for some festive shopping in an indoor arena, I would definitely recommend the Grand Coastal. Oh! And I almost forgot lunch! I ate a Japanese steak house called Lil Tokyo, and it was excellent! Check out these Japanese egg rolls- fantastic tempura coating and chock full of crab meat! Yummy!