Design flaw?

As I’ve hinted at before, I’m not a big fan of the Pittsburgh Mills. The other night, we went there to see Shrek the Third. Before the movie, we stopped for a quick bite in the food court.

One might think, with the sheer number of malls being built these days, that there would be some sort of template or at least a laundry list of things to include in a mall food court. One might also be tempted think that said template would include a bathroom.

As far as we could tell after several minutes of searching, there is no bathroom in the food court. You either have to go into the movie theatre, whose bathrooms require a movie ticket to use, or walk out of the food court into the shopping area of the mall. Check the map, and you’ll see that it’s a pretty good distance to the nearest public restroom.

Strategic decision to get people out of the food court and into the shopping area, or silly design flaw?