Food's become a shopping center trend, whether it's a specialty grocer or upscale eats delivered to your theater seat. (That is, the way to investors' wallets is through their stomachs.) That was a major takeaway at Bisnow’s third annual Southern California Retail Real Estate Summit yesterday, with some 225 real estate pros in attendance.

According to Faris Lee Investments president Rick Chichester (one of our moderators) SoCal is one of the top five high-demand markets in the country for retail real estate acquisitions. As strong as the market is, however, he's seeing discipline among clients and cautions everyone to be diligent in their underwriting. There's still more capital than product, financing is robust, and first- and second-tier properties usually have multiple offers. Rick's expecting another shopping center customer, er, grandbaby in six months.