Food hall concept coming to Carpenter Street in Downtown Evansville

EVANSVILLE, Ind. – Check another box on the dining bingo card, Evansville: We’ll soon have a food hall downtown on Carpenter Street right next door to 2nd Language.

“Every big city has food halls now,” said co-owner Jacob Vanhooser. “Nashville, Chattanooga, Louisville, Cincinnati. They’re different everywhere.”

The appeal of a food hall is variety and atmosphere – it’s a like a food court but cooler, with numerous restaurant booths occupied by local entrepreneurs and a large communal seating area.

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Vanhooser and wife Lauren, who live in Nashville but whose families are local, bought the building at 408 Carpenter St. — formerly Mercury Sports — in late 2020 and brought in their friend Augie Carrington of Cincinnati as a partner. They developed the idea of Carpenter Crossing Food Hall because they felt it filled a need and would contribute to the Downtown revival.

“There’s nothing quite like this here yet,” Carrington said. “Just the other night we were all out watching a game and we wanted to get dinner, and one person wanted German food, some others wanted something a little quicker, but nobody wanted fast food. A food hall is a place where you can get a fairly quick bite, there are plenty of options, and it’s scratch food from local chefs.”

Vanhooser agreed that multiple options are what make food halls popular.

“My wife and I eat different things,” he said, “so when we go to a food hall, she’s getting sushi or Thai or ramen and I’m getting barbecue or hot chicken, so it’s a place where everyone will find something they want. Also, we love Downtown and feel like it’s been underutilized for a long time; but now Haynie’s Corner has really changed, and we love what Randy (Hobson) did with 2nd Language. We think that connecting this area with Main Street and Haynie’s Corner is going to be something really cool for Downtown Evansville and we’d like to be a part of creating that.”

The Carpenter Crossing building has roughly 22,000 square feet of space, but not all of it will be used for restaurants right away.

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There will be five shops – ideally four restaurant booths, one with desserts, and a bar and seating. About 150 diners will be seated comfortably between the main floor, a mezzanine area with televisions and patio. If the shop is successful, there will be room to add more restaurant spaces and maybe an incubator booth with a shorter term lease for a brand-new startup.

Other food halls often have a resident brewery, and there could be room for that someday as well.

The kitchen spaces will be separate from each other and roughly 200 square feet each, with a hood, three-compartment sink, hand sink and a counter across the front for serving. In the back will be space for prep and storage, freezer space and so on. Specialty equipment and some build-out will be individual to each restaurant. Leases will be signed for a minimum of one year.

Tenants could be already-successful restaurateurs who want to branch out with a different idea or chefs in the middle range who already have experience but who don’t have the capital to go full-on with their own restaurant.

“It’s a great way to start without having a couple hundred thousand dollars lying around,” Vanhooser said. “If we eventually have an incubator space, it could be leased for a couple-month period or maybe go without rent for a profit-sharing model so someone could start with a very small amount of cash.”

The food hall should open for business sometime in the early summer of 2022.

For more information, contact Augie Carrington at augie.carrington@gmail.com or Jacob Vanhooser at javanhoo@gmail.com

Contact Aimee Blume at aimee.blume@courierpress.com