Leonard Galleria

A sprawling two-level suburban mall anchoring Leonard County's retail economy, somehow still thriving in an era that was supposed to kill malls.

The Leonard Galleria is the suburban cathedral of consumption at the heart of Leonard County — two levels of retail, a cavernous food court, a twenty-screen multiplex, and a central atrium featuring both an ice skating rink and a carousel because somebody in 1994 thought really big. The mall has somehow weathered every retail-apocalypse prediction, partly because it reinvented itself as a social venue for teenagers and mall-walking retirees, and partly because the Vice Dale and Leonard demographics still want somewhere to wander that has valet parking and a Cheesecake Factory. The food court is its own ecosystem: teens on first dates, mall employees on break, moms with strollers, the guy who auditions for American Idol every year, and the food-court mafia of managers who know exactly who's skimming which register. Security is provided by a private contractor whose uniformed officers are mostly wonderful and occasionally surprisingly aggressive.