Amazons Shaver Hall is proof that the food hall trend desperately needs to die

If the Big Apple has one food trend that needs to die, it’s food halls – those indoor clusters of same-old “favorites” that might or might not be available at any particular time you go.Just-opened Shaver Hall on the ground floor of the former Lord & Taylor building on Fifth Avenue, now owned by Amazon, hopes to buck the recent trend of flops.I wish them well but the model is as stale as cheese left to mold in the sun. The Dallas-based The Food Hall Co.

is behind Shaver Hall.Jeff Bezos should fire whoever decided to install a Texas-based outfit in what was until 2019 one of the city’s most iconic shopping venues.In the last couple years, Shaver Hall has had tons of hype in WWD, Forbes and Travel + Leisure — and, yes, the New York Post — even as the city was fast losing its taste for food halls.The public chewed up and spit out food courts branded by the great Jean-Georges Vongerichten at the Tin Building and popular chef Todd English at the Plaza hotel.Next to go will be Singapore-themed Urban Hawker in Midtown, which will shut down on July 17.

The recent body count also includes Gotham West, Canal Street Market, Market Lane, several locations of Urban Space, Citizens Market Hall and Williamsburg Food Hall.Like Shaver Hall, they all claimed to be “a food hall like no other.”But the Big Apple is a giant, five-borough “food court.” Who needs to eat cliché dishes at cramped tables in charmless, warehouse-like settings when there are vastly more interesting options at actual, comfortable restaurants outside your apartment door.

Close to my Upper East Side home are French, Italian, Japanese, American and British eateries.We also have – right across the street and around the corner! – sit-down places for Afghan kebabs, South African grilled meats, Spanish tapas, Ecuadorean fish soup, Irish stew, Indian tandoori, Thai curry and Mexican paletas.With so many intriguing options, I can’t get excited about pepperoni slices at Shaver’s ...