A New Food Hall Is Opening in Midtown — With a Cheese Conveyor Belt

If anything seems to have closed at a faster clip than food halls, it’s department stores. Shaver Hall is set to open in the former iconic department store Lord & Taylor’s in Midtown at 424-434 Fifth Avenue, between West 38th and 39th streets, in late 2025. In the former lobby where beauty counters once stood, the new food hall is being flipped to include a new omakase from acclaimed Chicago chef BK Park, a wine bar with a (yes) cheese conveyor belt, and that second ___location of Brooklyn’s F&F Pizzeria.

The very historic and almost 200-year-old Lord & Taylor department store closed in 2019 (the name of the food hall stems from its longtime president, Dorothy Shaver). The address was taken over by Amazon, which renamed it to the Hank Building. This means that the company is Shaver Hall’s landlord and, much like the Google campus’s own food stalls, the food hall will function as extended benefits for workers in the building.

Texas-based company the Food Hall Co., under the Dallas-based chain restaurant group FB Society, is running Shaver, a 35,000-square-foot ground floor space with two restaurants, 11 food stalls, and two bars. The food hall branch also runs Plano’s Legacy Hall and Nashville’s Assembly Food Hall.

Shaver Hall’s omakase is a full-service restaurant from Park, who runs Chicago omakases Juno Sushi and Mako Chicago. Park explains via a rep that the New York high-end omakase will take two and a half hours with “traditional and modern preparations” applied to seafood and produce. “I’ve always wanted to be part of New York City’s vibrant and diverse culinary scene,” Park writes, “so when the opportunity presented itself, it felt like the right time to expand and push myself creatively. Shaver Hall seemed like the perfect fit — right in the middle of all the action.”

The unnamed wine and cheese bar features a very gimmicky yet popular aspect. It’ll have a moving conveyor belt — similar to the ones more commonly seen at sushi restaurants like Kura Revolving Sushi Bar — that will rotate cheese and condiment plates in front of people.

The food hall’s second full-service restaurant is Tallow Steakhouse. It’ll be a fine-dining place serving prime and aged steaks, as well as dishes cooked with beef tallow, per its website. A job listing describes the restaurant as having 125 seats.

Shaver’s already announced food stalls include the second locations of Carroll Gardens restaurant F&F Pizzeria, Korean fried chicken restaurant Chick Chick, and, a fourth ___location of New York takeout Taqueria Al Pastor. Other new vendors include second locations of lesser-known New York City vendors, halal Mediterranean restaurant Zazu and pasta restaurant PastaSole. This means there are six more to-be-announced vendors to come. There’s also a store selling snacks, grab-and-go food, and coffee. It’ll also have a self-serve beer tap wall with 20 drafts.

Shaver’s architecture firm, ZGF, will incorporate physical details recalling the retail predecessor: canopies above food stalls, signs in the style of fashion labels. Generally, people will be able to order directly at each food hall; there will be a larger dine-in area. There’s also a stage for live events and concerts.

You might be thinking Midtown ___location is already awash in food halls and food markets and you’d be right — not too far away, Urban Hawker Market stays busy. Meanwhile, in recent years, New York has seen a slew of food hall shutters and ownership changes — including Gotham West Market in Midtown.