Bramalea City Centre’s Food Court Just Got a Major Upgrade
Food courts don’t usually make headlines, but Bramalea City Centre’s newly completed renovation is a genuine exception. The Brampton mall has wrapped a multimillion-dollar overhaul of its South Food Court, and the transformation is significant enough that it’s worth planning a visit around.
Located at 25 Peel Centre Drive, the super-regional mall pulls in roughly 16 million visitors a year and serves a fast-growing population across Peel Region. Its food court hadn’t seen a major update since 2004, so the age of the space alone made reinvestment overdue. The newly finished South Food Court now spans 31,701 square feet — bigger than the Queen’s Cross Food Hall at Eaton Centre (19,000 square feet), though still smaller than Square One’s roughly 40,000-square-foot Food District.
The renovation, led by Pappas Design Studio Inc. in collaboration with Petroff Partnership Architects, leans into what the mall describes as an airy, contemporary aesthetic: a base palette of white and light wood, layered with blue, green, black, caramel and terracotta accents. Custom millwork, integrated greenery, decorative lighting and banquette seating round out a space clearly designed to make people want to stay longer, not just grab food and go.
Beyond the visual refresh, the layout itself has changed meaningfully. The food court was repositioned closer to Centre Court, improving its visibility from the mall’s main corridor and strengthening its connection to nearby retailers. Several kiosks that previously surrounded a floor opening were removed or relocated, allowing the design team to fill in that opening entirely and reconfigure the space for better traffic flow. That single change added roughly 10 percent more seating while also improving sightlines and giving food vendors stronger storefront exposure.
The renovation also reflects how mall operators are rethinking what a food court is actually for. According to general manager Andrew Butler, today’s dining areas function as much more than a place to eat — people show up with laptops and phones, treating the space as an informal workspace or social hub, which is why the redesign built in charging options throughout, including both plug-in and wireless charging. Updated waste and recycling stations were also added as part of a broader sustainability push, aimed at improving diversion and cutting down on landfill waste.
The refresh coincided with the arrival of two new food vendors, Szechuan Express and Poulet Rouge, adding to an already sizable dining lineup within one of Canada’s largest enclosed shopping centres.
For Butler, the investment fits into a bigger philosophy about staying competitive in a retail environment that keeps shifting. As he put it, a shopping centre that isn’t actively evolving is effectively falling behind — and food, in particular, has become non-negotiable for drawing people through the doors in the first place.
For Brampton shoppers who’ve spent two decades navigating a dated, cramped dining area, the timing couldn’t be better. The renovated South Food Court is open now, putting Bramalea City Centre in step with other major GTA malls — Eaton Centre and Square One among them — that have poured serious capital into similar overhauls in recent years.