Melbourne Square — Local services in Melbourne

Old as dirt, this mall. I remember a time decades ago when this place was always bustling with people, stores all filled. Music playing as you roamed store to relevant and interesting store to shop, be it for a random outing or holiday shopping etc.

Well that ship sailed. It has slightly fewer vacancies than some other malls, so that is a plus. However many of the stores are far from anchors, likely there only because the rent is reasonably cheap for the location but offer no real draw. A thorough cleaning is overdue, if not at least some minor renovations. Lighting is dim and materials inside are dark or dirty worsening the effect. Some of the remaining stores are far spaced apart, likely to make it seem less vacant, but just ends up isolating stores far away from everything.

People generally go to malls to shop, be it to go to a major label clothing store, an electronics store, a big department store or bookstore etc. People don't typically describe their primary draw to a mall being to go to a 1500 sq ft unit that has three chairs used to pluck eyebrows or do your makeup for you. Nor are they likely to go there for tattoos, or to enlist in the army. And good luck if you're trying to quit smoking, there's numerous places trying to hawk nicotine, including carnival barkers to try to get you in there which is kind of shameful. And that brings up the most un-mall-like thing I'd ever seen, and that is the abundance of barkers coming out of stores and being downright harassing in a few cases. It may be a cultural thing, as they were all of (I guess?) Persian descent, Iranian etc. Very loud, and following you after you walk past continuing their speel, even after you said no thank you... Both times you passed.

On the bright side, the main anchors are still there which is somewhat reassuring. The JCPENNEY is looking a bit worse for wear, but at least it is well stocked etc. Many of the stores from years and years ago remain, of course the chain jewelers locations and surprisingly the puppy store that's been there since at least like 1990 remains open and practically unchanged apart from having primarily small/toy breeds now.

If you need to go to Macy's, it's there. If you want your typical GameStop or FYE you're good to go too. If you want to experience mall shopping... Those days are nearly past us so you best get to the Gardens or Orlando etc. If that's not an option, shop online. It's...

We were in town for my father-in-law's funeral & we were tired and arrived a little late but our party of 6 was seated fairly quickly by the manager. Our waitress also had a larger group at the next table that came in after we did, so unfortunately, our table went lacking. They were out of some of the items we were ordering, because the last of it went to the larger party at the next table but none of this was communicated to us, so some of our party just sat and watched the rest of us eat, not knowing their food was out of stock. It was not only the food confusion, but the bar also. No communication from the bar through our waitress of the alcohol they had been out of for weeks. We finally had to go to the bar ourselves to hear this and make another selection. Meanwhile, our waitress was refilling drinks and making sure the larger party at the next table was well taken care of. We eventually asked for another waitress and the apologetic manager quickly complied. The manager also personally saw to the preparation of the 2 orders of coconut shrimp we were finally informed they were out of and offered us a free entree and an array of desserts as an apology for the poor service we received. Service got considerably better after we received a new waitress. We were nice and full...

Florida East Coast malls from St Augustine to Fort Pierce have unfortunately had a long history of closing or dying malls. Since Melbourne is growing at a steady fast pace, This is pretty much the only enclosed mall within a 60 mile radius that is still very much alive and active (since the Vero Beach and Merritt Island malls are dead nowadays, otherwise your best options are in Orlando, or if you wanna go out of your way, Treasure Coast in Stuart, and both are hour long commutes). Despite the Melbourne Square Mall in my personal opinion having kind of an otherwise boring interior layout, they are still adding a bunch of new tenants and food places for people to eat at, and all the anchor stores are still doing well. Overall it's still a pretty good mall that still captures the vibes from the past, and while it's not too overly special of a mall (aesthetically speaking), and there's a few tenants on the sides that are still empty here and there, it's definitely great to see that after COVID they keep investing into putting new shops and restaurants here in an area of Florida that is fast growing. I'm happy that they're keeping this one alive and I think Melbourne Square has a good future...