Mars-owned Cheez-It is opening a branded food court stall inside Westfield Topanga Mall in Los Angeles on Sept. 2, running daily through Sept. 30 in partnership with American Pop Cuisine concept Chain. The activation marks the inaugural brand-partner residency in Chain's six-month food court takeover at the Canoga Park mall.

The move extends a string of real-world foodservice stunts from the snack brand — following the Studio Cheez nightlife experience and the Cheez-In Diner pop-up — and reflects a broader pattern of CPG brands using limited-run foodservice formats to drive trial and social engagement beyond traditional retail shelves.

The Menu

The Cheez-It Court offers three items that weave the brand's crackers and signature Extra Cheesy seasoning into food court staples. The Cheez-Y-Bun pairs a warm cinnamon roll with Cheez-It-seasoned cream cheese frosting, salted caramel crunch, and a whole cracker on top. The Crunchy Cheez-Dog wraps a Wagyu hot dog in a panko-and-cracker crust, referencing the viral Korean corn dog format. The Cheez-Steak loads sliced ribeye, American cheese, grilled onions, and pickled jalapeños onto a Cheez-It Extra Cheesy–seasoned hoagie roll with dill pickle aioli and a Hot & Spicy cracker crumble.

Nicole Sorensen, VP of Marketing for Cheez-It, called the stall "the ultimate gathering place" that demonstrates the cracker's versatility in foodservice applications — a pitch increasingly familiar as snack brands look for ways to embed themselves in away-from-home occasions.

Why It Matters for Foodservice

Chain, founded by actor and writer B.J. Novak, positions itself around high-concept remixes of American pop-culture food. Chief Creative Officer Nicholas Kraft noted that mall culture is drawing a younger cohort that sees in-person grazing as a genuine leisure activity — a dynamic that dovetails with the broader foodservice-at-retail trend c-store operators and food hall developers have been chasing since foot-traffic patterns shifted post-pandemic.

For the convenience channel, the Cheez-It Court is a useful data point: cracker and salty-snack brands are actively testing foodservice integration at the menu level, not just as a packaged impulse buy at the register. Operators who carry Cheez-It SKUs — or competing cracker lines — may find co-branded LTO foodservice hooks worth watching as CPG partners scout channel-agnostic promotional vehicles. The snack and packaged-food category has seen sustained volume pressure from private label, making experiential activations like this one a more common tool in brand-defense playbooks.

Following the Sept. 2 opening, Mars plans to publish recipes for all three items on CheezIt.com, extending reach to home cooks and reinforcing the brand's foodservice crossover positioning beyond the physical stall's 29-day run.

Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.