Hanging out at the mall with a 21st-century twist

Christiana Mall is one of the less depressing malls in the area, as malls go.

It’s pretty bright, has been updated fairly recently and has trendy shops like Lush and a place that makes pad thai to order. You don’t feel like you’ve stepped back in time (at Concord Mall, if you stand in front of Cafe Riviera at just the right angle, you actually travel to the ’80s). There’s still a Spencer’s, a Hot Topic, a Claire’s Boutique and a Gap, but few, if any, mallrats.

It’s just not what teenagers choose to do with their time. To be fair, in the ’80s kids couldn’t carry an entire video arcade in their pocket.

Christiana is home to an Apple Store, always bustling with a couple of state troopers at hand for crowd control. The Microsoft Store a few yards away is by comparison pretty chill. Don’t overlook it, though, especially when it comes to free workshops and events, which include coding workshops for kids, a gaming league and a Saturday morning business series for entrepreneurs that covers topics like pitching, branding and social media. The Microsoft Store, as the kids say, is quite lit.

If you’d rather sleep in on Saturdays, evening entrepreneurial workshops are also offered several times a week.